日本第一夫人力挺女性经济学

    日本首相安倍晋三大力倡导的“女性经济学”面对着诸多挑战与希望，这一切都能在他身边那位着装时尚的女性——他的太太昭惠身上得到全面的诠释。

    和许许多多的日本女性一样，安倍昭惠自小接受的观念就是“家庭主妇是通往幸福的最稳妥的道路”。她的职业生涯充其量只能算是浅尝辄止——一次是在电通广告公司（Dentsu），另一次则是担任一家广播电台的主持人。2012年，她在东京开办了一家主打有机概念的小型居酒屋，试图重新勾画自己的人生，她的婆婆对此惊骇不已，要求她远离这些场合。

    然而……

    安倍昭惠素来坦率，曾在诸多议题上公然反对丈夫的观点，既包括应否持有核武器的问题，也包括应否提升销售税的问题（对于两者她均表示反对）。她曾说过：“不能表达自身看法的女性，会变得越来越压抑。”

    这一次，这位日本第一夫人则将自己的坦率用在了一件夫妇两人均表示赞成的事情上——利用少量女性人才重振长期低迷的日本经济。她在本周二下午，向美国战略和国际研究中心（Center for Strategic and International Studies，简称CSIS）的听众们表示：“我们需要大胆的革新。”安倍昭惠在这处位于美国华盛顿的智库所在地进行的演讲主题，便是“女性经济学对日本及世界的重大意义”。

    这绝不是玩笑。日本是全世界老龄化速度最快的国家，到2050年时，该国的劳动人口将会减少将近40%。尽管日本女性中，拥有大学学位的人口比例非常高，但大部分都在生了第一个孩子后就变成了家庭主妇。

    世界银行（World Bank）对工业化国家的女性在经济活动中的参与程度进行了排名，日本和韩国一同敬陪末位，尤其是专业类和管理类职位方面的排名。高盛（Goldman Sachs）预计，如果能弥合职业发展上的性别差距，日本的国内生产总值（GDP）有望提升13%。

    安倍昭惠指出：分析人士认为，日本臭名昭彰的“7天24小时”职业文化植根于该国的同侪压力和普遍存在的加班费制度，即便是白领阶层也不例外，而吸引更多的女性进入职场，正意味着要对这一传统加以革新。“女性若要在职业上有所发展，就需要一些弹性更大的工作，”安倍昭惠说，“如果女性要和男性一样辛苦工作，就很难让人相信这个社会是幸福的。”

    安倍晋三的政策议程包括扩大日托范围，鼓励企业将育儿假延长一倍，以及呼吁到2020年时，将女性在政府及企业领导层任职的人数比例提高到30%。他也在着手修订对公司报告的规定，加入了女性担任公司董事的人数要求。

    然而，动员日本女性步入职场，仅仅做出政策上的变革恐怕是不够的。当我请这位日本第一夫人描述一下女性经济学所面对的最大阻力时，安倍昭惠承认，这种阻力是社会性的：“这种女性将个人幸福押注在家庭主妇生活上的文化与意识。”

    这个问题并不新鲜。1993年，我曾经在日本生活了一段时间，和其他的西方记者一样，我着手调查了日本刚刚萌芽的“女权主义”文化——英语世界的学者们坚持认为女权主义正在日本崛起。而我所发现的情况却是，中年妇女乐于在家相夫教子（毕竟，她们真的会想过那种工薪阶层的辛苦生活吗？），年轻女性和未成年少女对婚姻的兴趣则远远超过她们对职业的热情。不用说，这一切都在当年媒体大肆报道的皇太子妃雅子身上得到了很好的体现。当年，这位曾在美国哈佛大学（Harvard）接受教育的经济学家兼外交官忍痛放弃了自己如日中天的事业，嫁给了日本皇太子，从此生活在与世隔绝的日本皇室中。【那年，我曾经就她的意外决定，在《洛杉矶时报》（LA Times）上撰写了一篇文章。】

    昭惠似乎希望藉由一些现实性的因素鼓舞日本女性参加工作。“贤妻良母的生活未必会（长久）。中间可能会遭遇离婚，或者是丈夫因遭遇不幸而无法工作，”她说道，或许是在暗指日本经济已较以往更不稳定，能为已婚男性提供的终身就业机会有所减少，“一旦发生什么事情，女性就需要独立……我身边有些朋友就遇到了这样的情况。”

    安倍夫妻档所面对的这个国家，无论在招聘、晋升还是薪酬方面，都存在着根深蒂固的性别歧视，同时还有担忧自身地位不保的男性不断做出强烈的抵制。对此，昭惠一如既往地给予了尖锐的反驳：“在此之前，日本的男性一直都在忽略女性的抱怨……男性们需要面对现实，他们别无选择，只能接受改变……（他们应当）仔细想想来自女性方面发出的怨言。”（财富中文网）

    Both the challenge and the promise of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “womenomics” campaign are wrapped in the stylish woman at his side—his wife Akie.

    Like so many Japanese women, Akie Abe grew up thinking that being a housewife was the surest path to happiness. She’s been, at best, a dabbler in the world of work—one stint at advertising agency Dentsu, another as a radio DJ. When, in 2012, she took a stab at charting her own life by opening a small organic izakaya pub in Tokyo, her appalled mother-in-law demanded that she stay off the premises.

    And yet…

    Akie is brashly outspoken, openly disagreeing with her husband on everything from nuclear power to raising the sales tax (she opposes both). “Women who can’t speak their minds grow depressed,” she has said.

    Now Japan’s first lady is deploying that outspokenness on behalf of an initiative they can both agree on: Reviving the country’s long stagnant economy with a jolt of female talent. “We are in need of bold change,” she told the audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Tuesday afternoon. Akie spoke at the Washington-based think tank’s event titled, “Womenomics: Why it Matters for Japan and the World.”)

    No kidding. Japan—aging faster than any country in the world–is on a course to lose nearly 40% of its workforce by 2050. Despite a high rate of college degrees, most Japanese women stay home after their first child.

    The country, along with Korea, also sits at the bottom of the World Bank’s ranking of industrialized countries’ inclusion of women in their economies — particularly in professional and management ranks — and Goldman Sachs estimates that closing the gender employment gap would boost Japan’s GDP by 13%.

    Akie argues that luring women into the workforce means changing the country’s infamous 24-7 work culture that analysts say is built on peer pressure and ubiquitous overtime pay, even among white collar workers. “For females to flourish there is a need for more flexible work,” Akie said. “It’s hard to believe that a society where women work as hard as men is a happy one.’’

    The Prime Minister’s policy agenda includes expanded daycare, encouraging businesses to double child-care leave times, and issues calls to raise the portion of government and business leadership positions held by women to 30% by 2020. He is also revising corporate reporting requirements to include the number of female directors on the companies’ boards.

    But mobilizing Japanese women may require more effort than policy change. When I asked Japan’s first lady to describe the biggest obstacle facing womenomics, she admits it’s a societal one: “The culture and consciousness of women who have the dream to be Lucky Strike housewives.”

    That problem is far from new. I spent part of 1993 living in Japan and, like other Western journalists, went in search of a budding “feminist” culture that English-speaking scholars insisted was emerging. What I found instead were middle-aged housewives content to run the family (who would want the grind of a salary-man’s life, after all?), and young women and girls far more interested in marriage than professions. All of this, of course, was captured that year in the media hype over Masako Owada, the Harvard-trained economist/diplomat who reluctantly dropped her turbo-charged career to marry the Crown Prince and live the confined life of Japanese royalty. (I wrote about the surprising decision for the LA Times that year.)

    Reality, it seems, is what Akie hopes will inspire Japanese women to work. “The life of the good housewife may not be [forever]. There is divorce, or because of an accident a husband might not be able to work,” she said, perhaps referencing the increased instability of a Japanese economy that offers husbands fewer lifetime guarantees of employment. “If something happens, a woman needs to be independent…Some of my friends are in that situation.”

    The husband-wife Abe team faces a country with long ingrained discrimination in hiring, promotion, and pay—and plenty of backlash from threatened men. True to form, Akie offered a pointed retort: “Up until now Japanese men have been ignoring the complaints of women… Men are facing a reality and there is no choice but to accept the change…[They should] think about complaints from the female side.”