Despite repeated calls by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to bolster women's roles in society, Japan fell further in a ranking of female lawmakers, dropping seven slots to 163rd out of 193 countries in 2016, according to a report released Tuesday by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Japan was ranked 156th out of 191 nations surveyed the previous year.
It lagged far behind a number of other industrialized nations, including Germany, in the No. 23 slot, the U.K., ranked 47th, and the U.S., in the No. 104 slot.