Japan has a female candidate among the frontrunners to become prime minister in a vote this month, raising the possibility that a nation known for lagging on diversity may appoint its first woman leader before the US.

While Kamala Harris battles with Donald Trump ahead of the November election that could make her the first female US President, Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi has emerged among the top three prospects in Japan’s ruling party leadership race.

If she wins - an outcome that is still far from certain - her victory would represent a breakthrough for a country that has yet to see a female premier, finance minister or central bank governor. Given the Liberal Democratic Party’s dominance in parliament, the winner of the Sept 27 vote is virtually assured of becoming prime minister.

“If a woman is chosen, it will mean that one glass ceiling will disappear,” said Harumi Taguchi, principal economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “It will be a symbolic event for gender equality.”

Still, there’s some doubt over whether the hard-line conservative Takaichi, who has cited former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher as an inspiration, would seek to further the cause of women in leadership.

She has garnered support from the party’s right wing and is considered the ideological successor to the late former prime minister Shinzo Abe. That means she favours ramping up defence and economic security, while maintaining strong support for the economy through spending and a slower rate hike path for the Bank of Japan.

Whatever Takaichi’s fate, the wider picture is of a country that continues to languish near the bottom of global diversity rankings in political, administrative and corporate life. Only two of the record nine candidates in the current leadership race are women.

Opinion polls in recent days suggest Takaichi is jostling with former cabinet members Shinjiro Koizumi and Shigeru Ishiba for leadership of the party. Both male, they have made more effort than her to appeal to women with their policies.

Takaichi herself has generally been less vocal about women’s rights and less supportive of legislation linked to gender equality than the other female candidate, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, who is lagging in the polls. Kamikawa calls in her policy platform for more support for those giving birth and raising children.

Takaichi favours keeping a law that forces married couples to share the same surname, an issue that has become a litmus test of how far candidates are willing to support women. Her two male rivals at the front of the leadership race are in favour of change.  

Hailing from the conservative prefecture of Nara, Takaichi spent a period as a Congressional Fellow in the US. She’s a former professor of business studies who once played drums in a heavy metal band.

“I also faced great difficulty when I first ran for election,” Takaichi said when asked at a debate this month what to do about the dearth of women in politics. “It’s very important to change society’s perceptions.”

While countries like France, Germany and South Korea had comparable low levels of female representation in parliament in 1980, most advanced economies have made significant progress toward equality since then.

Japan, however, continues to struggle. As of October last year, only 10.8% of lawmakers in Japan’s more powerful lower house were women, compared to 29% in the US Congress, and 35% in the German Bundestag.

Yet the inclusion of more women in politics has shifted Japan’s legislative agenda in the past. Groups of female lawmakers pushed through a law aimed at preventing spousal violence in 2001, and succeeded in strengthening the sexual offences law in 2017, according to a report by PwC Japan.

“Male and female politicians have different policy preferences to some extent,” said Rei Murakami Frenzel, president of the Murakami Family Foundation and the backer of a politics training school for young women. “Having the opinions of female leaders reflected in the decision-making process will lead to better decision-making and better policies.”

  - Bloomberg