Womenomics: Kathy Matsui at TEDxTokyo

Japan faces many structural challenges related to a shrinking and ageing population and workforce. One solution is to use half the population more effectively. It is only a myth, that more women working would lower the already very low Japnaese birthrate. Kathy Matsui calls for changes and says that "there is no such thing as a glass ceiling, it is just a thick layer of men". Recorded live at TEDxTokyo on May 21st 2011, at the Miraikan, Odaiba.

(Applause) Good morning.

So why Womenomics?

Back in 1999, I decided

to write a research report called "Womenomics",

because I strongly believed and I do today,

that part of a solution to Japan's
myriad of structural challenges

lies right in front of our eyes:

half the population.

What are some of these structural challenges?

First and foremost is
the D-word, demographics.

Many of you are familiar with these statistics,

but in case you are not, let me remind you.

By the year 2055, in most of our lifetimes,

the total population of this archipelago

will shrink by one third.

By that time, as you see,

the percentage of the gray population

will have doubled from 20% to over 40%.

These statistics are scary

and demographics are so severe that --

did you know Japan is the only OECD country,

where there are actually more pets than children?
(Laughter)

I didn't make that up.

I looked that up.

And if you look at it globally, of course,

Japan, the line is here in the red,

the percentage of the population
that is the workforce population.

Of course demographics is a challenge
for every developed economy,

but Japan, as you can see, is going to be shrinking

its workforce population faster than anywhere else.

So what are the answers?
What are the solutions?

Basically, as far as I can tell,
there are only three.

1. Raise the birth rate.

2. Change immigration laws.

And 3. again, use half
the population more effectively.

The first one I think the government has tried to fix,

but unfortunately, many young Japanese people,

many of you may be in this room,

have decided to say no to marriage.
(Yes to the mic!)

And as the ratio of unmarried Japanese rises,

of course it is a little bit difficult
to raise the birth rate, isn't it.

2. Immigration.

I personally believe this is inevitable,

but it is likely to take a little bit more time.

So that leaves us with the third,

I think most practical near-term solution.

Good news and bad news.

First of all, good news is,

Japan's female labor participation rate,

women working today, has reached
a record high of 60%.

I wrote my report 12 years ago

and I am glad to see there has been progress.

The bad news however is,
on a global comparison

this is where Japan ranks,

well below most other advanced nations,

especially in countries like Scandinavia,

where that ratio is close to 80%.

So what are the issues here?

One is what I call
the uniquely Japanese phenomenon

called the "M字カーブ", the M-curve.

What am I talking about here?

If you look at this graph,

and I know it is a little bit difficult
to look at graphs at this hour of the day,

but bear with me, this is basically

ages, age groups on the horizontal

and the vertical is the percentage of women working.

Now typically in any society,

you leave school, you enter the workforce

and you stay in the workforce until you retire.

In most economies, that is
sort of this hill-shaped curve,

but in Japan you have this "谷",

you have a valley between the ages of what,

late 20s and late 40s.

Now ladies and gentlemen, think about this.

Those of you who are working,

isn't the late 20s to late 40s period in anybody's career

the most productive period of one's career?

And Japanese women, for the most part,

are MIA, missing in action.

One of the bigger issues of course,

as many of you know,

because of the M-curve --
one of the reasons is, that

many Japanese mothers don't work.

In fact, 70% of Japanese mothers

quit working after their first child.

And internationally, if you look here,

only about roughly a third of

Japanese mothers with children under the age of 6

are working. Compare that to Sweden,
close to 80%, the US, 60%, etc.

Why don't more women work?

These are four reasons:

day care/nursing care, tax issues,

diversity focus, and immigration.

Let me focus though on 1. and 3.

This is a very common topic of discussion.

When we talk about womenomics in Japan,

there is simply not sufficient daycare.

Yes, the Japanese government
has made some progress

in expanding those facilities, but the reality is,

the percentage of Japanese children
under the age of 3

currently in the care of a daycare facility

stands at 28%.

Look at France, 43%, or Denmark, over 60%.

It's not also, by the way, daycare
or childcare outside the home,

what about inside the home?

This of course entertained my husband to know,

but the average number of hours,

this is a government study,

that fathers in Sweden, Norway, US, and Germany

spend on childcare and household chores

is over 3 hours a day.

In Japan, 1 hour a day.

And look at that red section of the Japan bar,

that is 15 minutes on the children.

OK, let me see gentlemen. 15 minutes.

You probably spend more than 15 minutes, my guess,

taking "お風呂", bath?

Maybe more than 15 minutes a day watching TV?

OK, let the truth be told.

So there is a big issue
with cooperation and mutual care,

inside the home as well.

Inadequate focus on diversity,

this is to me a huge issue.

The last 5 years, in most of the developed world,

we have seen concrete progress.

Change doesn't always happen from the bottom up,

oftentimes it has to happen from the top down.

To change things in society, you do need to put

agents of change in leadership positions.

So the percentage of Japanese managers is still 9%.

This is the same ratio it was 5 years ago.

Other countries are 35-50%.

We need more role models.

Interestingly, let's see, 25 years ago,
the Japanese government

actually passed the equal employment opportunity law,
"均等法".

Despite that, on average, Japanese women earn today

still only two thirds that of their male counterparts.

Now as you can see on this graph,

gender wage gaps exist everywhere, not just Japan.

But if you think about it,
if I am a Japanese woman

and no matter how hard I work,
no matter how hard I try,

I know, that I am always going to be discriminated

for pay and promotion. What am I going to do?

I'm probably not going to continue, right?

So this to me is a law, superficially,

but it is not really enforced in the way it should be.

Many people ask when I give
these talks on Womenomics,

"But does it really matter?"

And I think, the statistics prove a resounding yes,

because if you look at companies

that have adopted explicit practices to promote diversity,

for example, programs to support working mothers,

or programs to ensure objective evaluation
and performance metrics,

the red bar shows you
the average profit margin of those companies

is higher than the blue bar of companies that do not.

But let me tell you, the number 1 obstacle I encounter

when I talk about Womenomics in Japan, is this.

"But Matsui-san, if your thesis is right

and we have more Japanese women working in society,

is that not going to lower
the already very low Japanese birthrate?"

How many of you have heard that statement before?

Yes, many people. Well, it is a very nice thesis,

sounds good, but empirically this is false.

Look at this graph.

I am simply plotting: vertical axis is fertility rate,

horizontal axis is women in the workforce.

Don't bother with the dots, look at the red line.

That is a positively sloped curve. In other words,

the more women working in a country,

the higher the birthrate, not the opposite.

Look at Sweden, United States,
United Kingdom, France, Australia.

Now the Japanese in this audience don't believe me
or don't believe these statistics.

It is true in your own country.

This is the "47都道府県", 47 prefectures,

the slope, look at that, exactly the same.

Okinawa, Fukui, Nagano, relatively higher
female participation rate in the workforce

and relatively higher birthrate.

So what is the upside,
if we could implement Womenomics?

I know it is a bit of a dream,
but let's pretend for a moment.

If we could raise Japan's female participation rate,

I showed you that at 60%,
to match that of Japanese males at 80%,

this is the potential upside to GDP:

15%! 15% lift to Japanese GDP level.

That to me is well worth it.

Now what do we do finally? Four things.

1. Change that mindset.

Diversity Womenomics should not be
an extracurricular activity,

it has to be core to a company's bottom line strategy

and in order to fulfil longer potential growth for an economy.

2. Flexible work
and objective evaluation practices.

Flexible work, many people talk about
flexible work for women.

Think about it. If more Japanese women
are not getting married,

that must mean there are also lot of
single Japanese men,

who are single child,
who have to take care of

eventually their ageing parents, no?

They are going to need time off.

They are going to need more flexible work styles.

So this is not a gender issue.

Flexible work arrangements are for men and women.

3. Deregulation of nursing, daycare, and immigration.

Japan has agreed with the governments
of the Philippines and Indonesia

to welcome 1000 nurses. That is great.

But if you want to stay beyond three years, guess what,

you need to pass a national certification exam in Japanese

to stay and keep your visa.

Last February, 257 nurses took this test,
3 nurses passed.

If you are going to invite them,
don't set the bar so high.

Finally, a critical mass of female role models.

This is very important.
I actually used to be a huge opponent to anything

related to quotas, affirmative action.

I have begun to evolve my thinking.

The government of Norway, 2004,
adopted a legal quota system,

so that every publicly listed company in Norway

had to have at least 40%
of their corporate boards female.

Now can you imagine if you are
sitting in corporate Norway

at that time, you said "No way!".

There are not enough
talented capable Norwegian women

to fill our board's seats. It ain't gonna happen.

Guess what happened. One year went by,

two years went by. Today, most companies have

fulfilled this legal quota of 40%.

Why? Because the women were there.

They just crawled out of the woodwork.

They were lifted by other people and

now they are in important positions of decision making.

This is not impossible.

And I think Japan in particular,
given how far behind it is,

maybe does need a little bit of an extra push

to take the numbers up.

And finally for those of you in this room who are female

and there is lots of you and that is great to see,

if you don't remember anything from my presentation today,

remember one thing:
there is no such thing as a glass ceiling,

it is just a thick layer of men.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)