JAPAN BID TO RAISE FEMALE POLL BETS TO 35% HARD TO ACHIEVE: SURVEY

The Japanese government has a goal of raising the ratio of women running in national elections to 35 percent by 2025, but two-thirds of active female lawmakers think it will be hard to achieve, a recent Kyodo News survey showed.

The pessimistic outlook came from 66 percent of the survey's respondents as many of them cited a stereotypical view in Japan that politics is men's business and the difficulty of balancing being a mother, wife and politician as two of the main reasons.

Twenty-six percent of the respondents said the goal could be reached with concerted efforts by each political party.

Women accounted for 18 percent of all candidates in the House of Representatives election in 2017 and 28 percent in the House of Councilors election in 2019.

But the percentages of women who won seats in those elections went down to 10 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

With just 10 percent accounting for women, compared with the world average of 26 percent, Japan ranks 166th in the ratio of women in the lower or single house of parliament on a list of 190 countries, according to data by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

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