This is because Abe is looking to Japanese women to help him execute his strategy to revitalize the economy.

 

Governing a country with a shrinking and rapidly aging population, Abe is counting on Japan's "hidden asset", millions of highly educated women who are not working.

 

In Japan the negative impact of aging on growth is said to be larger than in any other advanced economy. Its decline in labor² is judged to subtract about 0.25 percentage points from potential growth each year.

 

An easy way to help slow this trend would be to increase the participation³ in the economy of women.

 

Kathy Matsui, chief Japan strategist at Goldman Sachs, said Japan could boost its GDP by almost 13 percent if it could narrow the gap between the number of men and women in the workplace, which would mean 7 million more workers in the labor pool.

 

Also, the World Economic Forum's research found that Japanese corporations with higher performance consistently have greater female participation in senior management.

 

The ambitious Abe has set numerical targets for his "womenomics" initiatives after his ineffective bids in other fields. He aims to raise the proportion of mothers who return to work after the birth of their first child to 55 percent and have women occupy 30 percent of leadership positions by the year 2020. As of March 2015, the Japanese government will require listed companies to disclose the number of women in executive positions in their financial reports.

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