Women leaders are rare in politics but also in business in Japan. TOKYO - New lawmaker Saria Hino takes her seat on Nov 11 as one of a record number of women in Japan’s Parliament, but while campaigning ahead of the recent election, a voter asked her: “Who’s looking after your children?” The mother-of-four was among 73 women elected to the 465-seat house of representatives in October’s vote – the most ever, but still a small minority at 16 per cent. Having won in central Japan’s Aichi region, the 36-year-old is on a mission to “deliver a message from the front lines” of those raising children or caring for the elderly.
“The responsibility for children’s growth should not lie solely on their parents’ shoulders,” said Ms Hino, who was elected to the opposition Democratic Party for the People. “I want to develop policies based on the overwhelming amount of information I have – personally – of what’s going on” at preschools and nursing homes, she told AFP. Japan has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco and its birth rate has been stubbornly low for decades.
There are a range of factors why women are choosing to have fewer children, including rising living costs and expecations that working mothers should still shoulder the domestic burden, child raising and caring for relatives. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, expected to lead a minority government after a parliament vote on Monday, has called the dearth of new babies a “quiet e.