Sanae Takaichi’s Premiership Is Unlikely to Close Japan’s Gender Gap

In late October of 2025, Japan’s parliament elected the country’s first woman prime minister, Sanae Takaichi of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). This is a noteworthy milestone for Japan, a country with pervasive gender inequality. However, Takaichi’s conservative platform is bringing into question the extent to which representation can establish equality. Facing internal corruption scandals and rising prices nationwide, the centre-right LDP is struggling to maintain dominance in Japanese politics. After the party—which has ruled Japan almost continuously in the post-war period—lost its majority in parliament in last year’s election, Takaichi’s path to power depended on forming a coalition with a party even further to the right, the Japan Innovation Party. As she takes the helm of the LDP that is losing much of its support to the populist, right-wing Sanseito party, Takaichi’s rise to power signals an appeal to conservative nationalism rather than a progressive step forward.

Takaichi, 64, was first elected to the House of Representatives as an independent in 1993, representing the Nara prefecture. She later joined the LDP in 1996 and has been reelected 10 times since. She has run for the LDP leadership twice before, in 2021 and 2024, but was unsuccessful both times.

Takaichi’s success is undoubtedly impressive, given that Japanese women face immense barriers to entry into politics. According to the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index, Japan ranks 118th out of 148, with its score in Political Empowerment trailing behind scores in the categories of economic participation, education, and health. While the global average percentage of women in parliaments is 27.2 per cent, women make up only 15.7 per cent of the seats in Japan’s House of Representatives, the more powerful house in Japan’s legislature.

Efforts to improve the status of women in Japan have been limited. In 2013, Former PM Shinzo Abe introduced his ‘Womenomics’ policy, which aimed to increase female employment, especially in senior or management positions, arguing that this would boost the economy and raise birthrates. While the goal was to increase the percentage of upper-level management or leadership roles held by women to 30 per cent by 2020, in 2025, it remains at 11 percent. The failure of Womenomics has been attributed to deeply entrenched social norms that position women as homemakers, as well as to the hierarchical structure of businesses and employment in Japan.

During Abe’s time in power, Takaichi held several positions, including Minister of Gender Equality in 2006, and Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications from 2014 to 2016 and again in 2019. Widely referred to as the ‘protégé’ of Abe, Takaichi has promised to continue his ‘Abenomics’ policy. This includes advocating for increased government spending, lowering interest rates, and structural reforms such as corporate tax cuts and deregulation of business as a way to bring the country out of an era of persistent deflation. Considering that Japan is now facing the opposite problem with inflation on the rise, it remains to be seen whether Takaichi will depart from her predecessor’s approach to address the current challenges.

Another key part of Takaichi’s platform has been a more restrictive immigration policy and stricter policing of the behaviour of foreign tourists. This resembles key talking points of other conservative leaders. As immigrants make up only 3 per cent of the population in Japan, this appears to be an appeal to voters that the LDP lost to Sanseito.

Among her other right-leaning views, Takaichi has been particularly criticized for her stance on gender issues. For instance, she supports the single-surname policy that requires married couples to adopt a single surname, arguing that different surnames can disrupt the family unit. While around 95 per cent of Japanese women change their surnames after marriage, Takaichi’s husband has legally adopted hers. 

Reactions to her potential ascent to power as PM have remained wary. While some recognize that having a woman in power could improve Japan’s global perception, others note that a single woman leader will not significantly improve women’s position in politics and that her socially conservative views will threaten gender equality.

According to a cross-national report by the Westminster Foundation of Democracy, women political leaders tend to prioritize issues such as reproductive rights, childcare, education, and healthcare. While Takaichi has promised to enact policies to make childcare more affordable by partially tax-deducting babysitter fees, women’s issues have been largely absent from her early agenda. 

In other countries, women heads of state have taken steps to advance gender equality by bringing issues that directly impact women to the nation’s attention. For instance, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico enacted constitutional reforms that provide women the right to substantive equality, including provisions to close the gender wage gap and protections against gender-based violence. Furthermore, electing women to office has the potential to break stereotypes about what women are capable of, as well as providing role models for young girls and women considering careers in politics.  

However, a woman head of state alone does not guarantee an improved situation for women. Takaichi is not the first woman politician to disregard issues of gender inequality, despite them owing their positions of authority to the gains of the feminist movement. For instance, Margaret Thatcher, whom Takaichi has listed as a role model, denounced feminism and actively worked against providing childcare subsidies or other assistance to working mothers, reinforcing her belief in traditional family values. 

On the one hand, while leaders like Thatcher and Takaichi subvert expectations about women politicians by focusing on military and economic policy rather than welfare and women’s issues, it is difficult to view their success as a win for gender equality. Their inaction in advancing women’s interests renders their representation merely symbolic, not substantive. 

While Takaichi’s success shows that the gender barrier can be broken in Japanese politics, her support for traditional gender roles as a woman—even if not applied to herself—only further entrenches and, to a certain extent, legitimizes patriarchal norms. For Japan to close its gender gap, systemic change is necessary—something a woman prime minister alone cannot deliver.

Edited by Aubrey Nan 

Featured image: Takaichi speaking at her first press conference as Prime Minister. “Sanae Takaichi 20251021 press conference (6)” by Cabinet Secretariat is licensed under CC BY 4.0.