March 8 was International Women’s Day. There seems to have been a sea change for gender equality in recent months, through activism against sexual harassment by #MeToo campaign, which originated in the United States. Many including myself wish to make the campaign sustainable to achieve long-awaited gender equally, even though the World Economic Forum, which publishes the Gender Gap Forum every year, stated that it may take 200 years to close the world's gender gap.

What is the status of Japan regarding gender gap? According to the Gender Parity Report, its rank for gender parity was down from 103th to 114th in 2017, due to the low ranking of political empowerment and economic participation/opportunity, which forms a significant part of this index. The ranking by the European Institute for Gender Equality does not make the picture better, either. When you look at these figures from outside, you might wonder how effective or efficient the efforts and initiatives taken by the Abe administration for the empowerment of women and work-style reform in the past several years have been.

As for jobs and employment in general, in recent days the media extensively covered the official opening of the recruiting season for 2019 and the issue of miscalculation of working hours under the "discretionary work system." The former offers a clue as to why so many similarly dressed young people rush to recruiting seminars. The latter may make you wonder why working hours are such a big deal debated at the Diet.