Jap a n A s s o c i at i o n f o r Fe m a l e E x e c u t i v e s

2018.01.01

T he 9 th JA FE Sem inar
On July 3, 2017, the 9th JAFE seminar was held at theTokyo American Club. On this occasion, we welcomed as
our special guest, Mr. Shinjiro Koizumi, Member of theHouse of Representatives and Chief Deputy
Secretary-General of the LDP, a highly popular requested
speaker from our members, who spoke on the topic of “AnEra of a Life Expectancy of 100 Years and the Social
Security System” . At the beginning of his speech, he also
talked about the results of the Tokyo Metropolitan
Assembly election, which had been held the day before.

Summary of the speech by Mr. Shinjiro Koizumi, Member of the House of Representatives
Children's Participation in Politics– Voting Starts from 18 Years of Age,Pa r t i c ip ation in Politics Starts from0 Years of Age”
Mr. Koizumi talked about a meeting that
had been held in March to report on his
political activities that took place in
Yokosuka, his local constituency. Baby
stroller parking and colouring areas were
set up leading to attendance byapproximately 800 people, of whom 80
were children. The fact that 10 percent of
the attendees at this political meeting werechildren was an unprecedented success.
Rather than having people suddenly think
about politics at the age of 18, Mr. Koizumi
explained that what is necessary is to create
an environment where politics feels familiarand close-at-hand from the age of 0.

Media coverage of the consumption
tax increase
The fact is that newspaper companies,
which are reporting, “Youngparliamentarians should not run away fromthe debate on consumption tax increases!”
are the companies which will benefit from a
reduced tax rate if consumption tax israised to 10% or more. It is not reallypersuasive for them to reportparliamentarians should “not run awayfrom the debate!” when they themselves are
benefiting from reduced taxes. What is
important in order to gain understanding
from the general public with regard to
consumption tax is equity in the
consumption tax itself, and willing
acceptance. From this perspective, it is odd
that aside from food, it is only newspapers
which are not subject to consumption tax.
This should be reviewed.

Funding for child insurance
The problem of the declining birthratec an n ot wai t. W e ne ed to i mpl e me nt
solutions in the next few years.
“Child insurance” was recommended inMarch, but the issue is how we go about
making funds available for children.”“Child insurance” is a concept intended tocover the costs of free early childhood
education using the social insurance
premiums based on the premise ofsociety-wide support for children andchildrearing. By way of adding it to thepension insurance premiums, the idea is tocollect insurance premiums from
employers and workers and to allocate
them to childrearing support. An insurance
premium rate of 0.1% comes to about 160
yen a month per person, through which wewould be able to make funds of 340 billion
yen. That means we would be able to add
5,000 yen a month to the current childbenefits. If 0.5% were to be realized, 25,000
yen a month could be added, and inessence, childcare education could be madefree of charge.

“Child insurance” is a new social insurance
scheme that maintains equity amonggenerations
Referring to changes in the social insurance
premium rate, the pension stands at 9.15%.

Only the employment insurance rate hasdeclined over the past few years from 0.5%
to the current 0.3%. Medical insurance is5%, long-term care insurance is 0.825%. It
is highly likely that these rates will increaseas the baby-boomer generation reaches theage of 75 in 2025. However, even if “childinsurance” increases by 0.1%, this can beabsorbed by the fact that the employment
insurance rate is declining. Currently, themajority of recipients of social security
benefits are elderly people, but in order toensure generational equity, we should makeway for child insurance in the framework ofsocial insurance. From now on, we arefacing an era of society-wide support forchildren and childrearing coming fromthose with and without children.
As for when recipients will be able to claim
their pension, it will be possible toimplement an extension to 70 years of age,but in the future where life expectancy isexpected to reach 100 years, we shouldmake it possible to extend the age to evenafter 70. It is also necessary to design asystem that will encourage wealthier people
to decline their pensions.
I would like for everyone to express
constructive opinions, and for this tobecome a national debate.

12N EWS L e tter
4th Summer Camp in Tateshina
On July 22 and 23, 2017, the highly-popular limited-number
Summer Camp in Tateshina held annually was held for the fourth
time at the Poppins Training Center over a two-day period.
This time, in response to the results of the survey, “Survey on theAwareness of Female Executives” set as the topic at least year’s
Summer Camp, and implemented in February, the topic for thisyear’s camp was furtherance using a qualitative survey.
In addition, Ms. Mariko Bando, the Chancellor of Showa Women’s
University and Ms. Sachiko Habu, Editor-in chief of Nikkei Dual,
who jointly implemented and analyzed this survey, joined us inTateshina, and participated in animated discussions over thetwo-day period.
At the beginning, Ms. Masako Bando spoke about “Women leaders
4.0: Career skills in a new era” , and this talk was followed by aroundtable, a presentation which included Ms. Bando’s childhoodand personal life, and further discussions. The after-dinnerdiscussions continued on the current situation of female
empowerment until late at night.
Ultimately, the survey respondent attributes were divided into threegenerations (the generation prior to the Equal Opportunity andTreatment between Men and Women in Employment Act, theVol.

2018.01.01

generation of the Equal Opportunity
and Treatment between Men andWomen in Employment Act, and thegeneration of the Childcare andFamily Care Leave Act), and theresults of the responses oncareer-building, leadership andwomen’s empowerment werecompiled with the addition of theresults of the 2-day qualitativesurvey.
The points of this two-day Summer Camp were serialized in Nikkei
DUAL at a later date.
In addition, Noriko Nakamura, the JAFE representative continued tointerview top executives such as JAFE honorary members through aqualitative survey, and the results of the survey were reported to theparticipants of the Year-End-Party held on December 5 by themembers of the steering committee.

Details

Tateshina Summer Camp, the Naked Truth Report
http://dual.nikkei.co.jp/article/110/84/“What 135 Female Executives Are ReallyThinking” Revealed:
http://dual.nikkei.co.jp/article / 111/29 /Introduction of members

Honorary Member

M s . K e i ko T a ke gaw a
Director-General of the Gender Equality Bureau,
Cabinet Ofﬁce

After graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences, The
University of Tokyo, Ms. Takegawa joined the Prime
Minister’s Office (current Cabinet Office). After studying
abroad, including the master’s program of the business schoolof Duke University in the United States, Ms. Takegawa served
as Examination Officer for the Decorations and Medals
Bureau, Cabinet Office; Director for Policy Evaluation,
Minister’s Secretariat; Director of the Division for ScientificAffairs, Science Council of Japan; Director of the Policy
Division for Universal Design, Policy Bureau, Ministry ofLand, Infrastructure and Transport; Deputy Director Generalfor Policies on Cohesive Society and the Minister’s Secretariat;
Deputy Director General for the Gender Equality Bureau;
Director of the Public Relations Office; and was appointed toher current post in July 2014.

On December 5, 2017, the Year-End-Party
was held. This year, we wanted ourmembers to be able to enjoy delicious
cuisine as much as possible, and so it washeld at La Table de Joel Robuchon inEbisu. Members invited their partners andfriends, and we also had a large number ofmen participating. In addition, a report
was given on the results of the “Survey on
the Awareness of Female Executives” ,which was compiled in the summer, anddiscussions were held on New Year’s
resolutions for further progress inwomen’s managerial posts.

JAFE Administration Office
Inside NPO Poppins 5F, Hiroo Plaza, 5-6-6, Hiroo, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0012

Ph: 03-6450-4880

Email: info@jafe.jp