(Bloomberg) — The daughter of Japan’s most prominent activist investor is tackling the nation’s dearth of female politicians with a scholarship program she hopes will help the country turn around one of the industrialized world’s lowest ratios of women in parliament.
Rei Murakami, the 27-year-old daughter of Yoshiaki Murakami, has launched the initiative to teach the ins and outs of politics to women in their teens through their 30s. Prominent female lawmakers will give lectures, including former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and Seiko Noda, who has more than three decades of experience as a lawmaker. Applications will be accepted through Wednesday, according to a press release on the Murakami Family Foundation website.
Women held just 9.7% of seats in the more powerful lower house of Japan’s parliament at the start of this year. That’s far below the global average of 26.1%, putting it 165th out of 188 countries, according to a report from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Womenomics” initiative, which aimed to get more women in the workplace, has elevated their presence in the office but has yet to bolster their representation in boardrooms and politics.
A desire to see Diet membership reflect the diversity of society as a whole led her to develop the program, Murakami said in a Zoom interview on Tuesday. “When there’s diversity in parliament, there’s diversity in policy. Female politicians tend to focus on childcare, education, elderly care — things that are closely tied to our daily lives.”
The scholarship program will take 10 to 20 participants, chosen by a panel of judges that includes Kathy Matsui, former vice chair at Goldman Sachs Japan, who was behind the government’s Womenomics push. They’ll be eligible to receive 1 million yen ($7,219) in funding to gain experience that will help them lay the foundation for a future in politics, including studying abroad or starting a business.
Rei Murakami took the helm of her family’s foundation in January from her older sister Aya who, like Yoshiaki, is an investor. Their father is a former trade ministry bureaucrat who went on to be a key figure in pushing through the 2019 merger of refiners Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K. by advising the Idemitsu founding family.
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