Overview
This is a regional research report by Senior Researcher Junko Aoki of the Saitama Resona Industrial Cooperation Foundation, analyzing the current state of women assembly members in local assemblies and initiatives to improve their representation.
Japan\'s Gender Gap Index for 2025, published in June 2025, ranked 118th out of 148 countries, the same as the previous year. The Gender Gap Index is an indicator showing gender disparities in economic, educational, health, and political participation fields in each country, published annually by the World Economic Forum. In Japan\'s case, while the education and health fields are comparable to other countries, scores in the economic and political participation fields are low, with particularly large gender gaps in political participation keeping the country in a low ranking every year.
The importance of increasing women\'s participation in policy and decision-making for realizing a gender-equal society has been pointed out for some time, and since the early 2000s, the national government and local public entities have undertaken initiatives such as setting target values for the ratio of women among council committee members. However, there have been few cases of setting target values for assembly members who are actually elected by voters.
While the ratio of women among council committee members has increased to some extent, both nationally and in Saitama Prefecture, the situation has remained flat in recent years. The "Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field" was enacted in 2017, and we will examine changes in women\'s participation in municipal assemblies after its enactment and the status of initiatives to increase women assembly members.
The "Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field" was enacted and implemented in May 2018, defining the responsibilities of the national and local governments and political parties to ensure that male and female candidates are as equal as possible, and that assembly members can balance public activities with family activities. In 2020, the Cabinet Office conducted a "Survey Research on Barriers to Women\'s Political Participation" targeting local assembly members and those who considered running but gave up. The results showed large gender differences in issues such as "experiencing discrimination or sexual harassment based on gender" and "difficulty balancing assembly members\' public activities with family life," revealing these as barriers to women\'s political activities.
Looking at the current state of the ratio of women among municipal assembly members in Saitama Prefecture, before the enactment in 2017, only 1.6% of municipal assemblies in Saitama Prefecture had women assembly members accounting for 40% or more, specifically only Honjo City. Even when combined with municipalities where women assembly members accounted for 30% to less than 40% (6.3%), municipal assemblies with 30% or more women assembly members accounted for less than 10% of the total. However, by 2024, municipal assemblies with 30% or more women assembly members increased to 38.1% of the entire prefecture, with Miyoshi Town Assembly reaching 53.3% women, a high ratio even by national standards.
The article shows that while the enactment of the Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field has significantly improved the ratio of women assembly members in local assemblies in Saitama Prefecture, further environmental improvements and consciousness reforms are necessary for continued advancement.
This summary was automatically generated by AI. Please refer to the original article for accuracy.
This is a regional research report by Senior Researcher Junko Aoki of the Saitama Resona Industrial Cooperation Foundation, analyzing the current state of women assembly members in local assemblies and initiatives to improve their representation.
Japan's Gender Gap Index for 2025, published in June 2025, ranked 118th out of 148 countries, the same as the previous year. The Gender Gap Index is an indicator showing gender disparities in economic, educational, health, and political participation fields in each country, published annually by the World Economic Forum. In Japan's case, while the education and health fields are comparable to other countries, scores in the economic and political participation fields are low, with particularly large gender gaps in political participation keeping the country in a low ranking every year.
The importance of increasing women's participation in policy and decision-making for realizing a gender-equal society has been pointed out for some time, and since the early 2000s, the national government and local public entities have undertaken initiatives such as setting target values for the ratio of women among council committee members. However, there have been few cases of setting target values for assembly members who are actually elected by voters.
While the ratio of women among council committee members has increased to some extent, both nationally and in Saitama Prefecture, the situation has remained flat in recent years. The "Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field" was enacted in 2017, and we will examine changes in women's participation in municipal assemblies after its enactment and the status of initiatives to increase women assembly members.
The "Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field" was enacted and implemented in May 2018, defining the responsibilities of the national and local governments and political parties to ensure that male and female candidates are as equal as possible, and that assembly members can balance public activities with family activities. In 2020, the Cabinet Office conducted a "Survey Research on Barriers to Women's Political Participation" targeting local assembly members and those who considered running but gave up. The results showed large gender differences in issues such as "experiencing discrimination or sexual harassment based on gender" and "difficulty balancing assembly members' public activities with family life," revealing these as barriers to women's political activities.
Looking at the current state of the ratio of women among municipal assembly members in Saitama Prefecture, before the enactment in 2017, only 1.6% of municipal assemblies in Saitama Prefecture had women assembly members accounting for 40% or more, specifically only Honjo City. Even when combined with municipalities where women assembly members accounted for 30% to less than 40% (6.3%), municipal assemblies with 30% or more women assembly members accounted for less than 10% of the total. However, by 2024, municipal assemblies with 30% or more women assembly members increased to 38.1% of the entire prefecture, with Miyoshi Town Assembly reaching 53.3% women, a high ratio even by national standards.
The article shows that while the enactment of the Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field has significantly improved the ratio of women assembly members in local assemblies in Saitama Prefecture, further environmental improvements and consciousness reforms are necessary for continued advancement.