Analysis | What Is Womenomics, and Is It Working for Japan?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe thinks he’s found an answer to Japan’s shrinking workforce: The vast ranks of women who’ve been excluded from or held back in the workforce. Abe has outlined goals to create a “Japan in which women shine.” He’s pushing policies to encourage and enable women to work and have a family at the same. There’s even a catchy phrase, “womenomics,” part of the prime minister’s broader Abenomics plan hatched in 2014 to lift Japan out of decades of economic stagnation. But while wo