Shinzo Abe: Unleashing the Power of ‘Womenomics’

September 25, 2013, 6:51 p.m. ET

Shinzo Abe: Unleashing the Power of ‘Womenomics’

Our goal in Japan is to boost women in the workforce significantly by 2020 and reduce pay disparity.

SHINZO ABE

I have no idea who first coined the word “Abenomics.” It was not my original term for the set of anti-deflation, growth-promotion policies I am now pursuing. I do know, however, who first promoted one concept that is a vital component of Abenomics: “Womenomics.” In 1999, Kathy Matsui and her colleagues at Goldman Sachs GS -0.40% first advocated that Japan could increase its gross domestic product by as much as 15% simply by tapping further its most underutilized resource—Japanese women.Fourteen years have elapsed since then, and the idea has finally entered Japan’s political lexicon. Womenomics will feature prominently in my address on Thursday at the United Nations General Assembly. Unleashing the potential of Womenomics is an absolute must if Japan’s growth is to continue. Womenomics also holds the key to enhancing growth in Africa, an economic powerhouse in the making.

Japan is a country with a shrinking population caused by a seemingly intractable decline in its birthrate. But Womenomics offers a solution with its core tenet that a country that hires and promotes more women grows economically, and no less important, demographically as well.

In 2010, Ms. Matsui and her colleagues wrote: “Contrary to popular opinion, higher female employment could actually help raise, not lower, fertility rates.” Proposals to boost female employment and grow Japanese families include “expanded daycare and nursing care services, implementation of flexible work arrangements, [and] more objective evaluation and compensation systems.”

My government’s growth plan forecasts that a 2% increase in productivity over the mid to long term will produce, in 10 years, an average of 2% in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth and 3% in nominal GDP growth. To achieve this, we must capitalize on the power of women. We have set the goal of boosting women’s workforce participation from the current 68% to 73% by the year 2020. Japanese women earn, on average, 30.2% less than men (compared with 20.1% in the U.S. and just 0.2% in the Philippines). We must bridge this equality gap.

The target year 2020 will coincide with the return of the Olympics to Tokyo. I am determined that by that time Japan’s boardrooms will be enhanced by a greatly increased number of female directors. I will do all that I can to facilitate this change.

Womenomics also has a vital role to play in Africa. For Africa, food scarcity and malnutrition remain long-standing challenges. Donor countries have made efforts to boost food production, but my government aims to go one step further, enabling a transition beyond subsistence agriculture to agriculture that puts money in farmers’ pockets. This can be achieved only through empowering women, the primary farm labor force in Africa.

A case in point is what the Japanese development specialist Jiro Aikawa has achieved among female African farmers. As a young member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers—Japan’s equivalent of the U.S. Peace Corps—Mr. Aikawa worked in Tanzania as a volunteer agricultural instructor. Through his involvement in African agriculture, he has succeeded in doubling the incomes of 2,500 farmers in Kenya. Africa’s agriculture will not grow strong unless Africa’s women are first empowered, and unless Africa’s agriculture is made robust, Africa itself will not thrive. This is his conviction.

One of Mr. Aikawa’s strategies is to promote women farmers’ understanding of the consumer market: He encourages them to visit small village markets to monitor what is selling well so that they can then efficiently produce high-value agricultural products. The goal is to move beyond agriculture that merely enables the farmer to eat, to agriculture that enables the farmer to earn money.

That strategy and other ways of helping farmers develop and implement their own action plans are part of what is known as the Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment Project, or SHEP. Japan is preparing to promote this model in 10 countries in Africa. It is Womenomics for Africa. All this is part of Japan’s commitment to support growth in Africa over the next five years through public and private partnerships totaling $32 billion.

I will make other proposals at the U.N. for further empowering women and will promise to spend more than $3 billion in the three years to come solely for that purpose—all in the firm belief that Japan, Africa and countries around the world can benefit.

Mr. Abe is the prime minister of Japan.