Family opposition cited for girls’ decisions to give up science

June 14, 2019

Tokyo--An annual report from the Japanese government suggested Friday that family opposition, not a lack of academic abilities, is a major factor prompting girls to give up choosing science-related studies at university.

The 2019 gender equality white paper, which features education for women, pointed out that the proportion of women studying science and engineering at university still remains low.

Of the total university students in Japan in fiscal 2018, women accounted for 35.2 pct at medicine and dentistry courses, 27.8 pct at science courses and 15.0 pct at engineering courses, according to the report, adopted at the day's cabinet meeting.

The proportion of women in science and engineering researchers, who make up most of the researchers in the nation, stood at 12.6 pct at such institutions as universities and 8.1 pct at companies, the paper said, noting that the figures were low compared with other countries.

Japanese female students' average scores in mathematics and science are higher than those of male students in member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the report.

Of female students who failed to make satisfactory choices of study courses, 17.3 pct cited opposition from their families as the reason, 7.3 percentage points higher than the proportion of male students, the Japanese government report noted.

The fact that the number of female teachers in science and mathematics is limited may also be working to make girls give up advancing to science-related courses, it suggested.

Elsewhere in the report, the government noted that housework and child care burdens tend to concentrate on women, and said it is "obvious" that this serves as a "hurdle" for women already in the world of work to study again at school even if they wish to do so.

Among people who have preschool children, 48.4 pct of women cited a decrease in housework and child care burdens as a condition needed for them to receive such recurrent education, far higher than 16.2 pct for men, according to the report. Jiji Press