There is a good rise in the number of women being employed in Japanese universities and this is mainly because the support services to facilitate child care and such, being extended to them. I have always maintained that if employers themselves provide daycare facilities, they can lure back the capable women workforce with a vengeance.
According to a report by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, for this academic year, women accounted for 21.2% of university faculty members across the country, an increase of 0.6% or 1,297 people; the highest percentage ever! Besides introducing daycare facilities within the university / work premises, facilities like a conducive work environments and part-time assistants are also being promoted. The Hokkaido University began a program in 2006 which allowed the female faculty members to hire part-time assistants that could perform basic chore for them for 30 hours a week.
The Hokkaido University currently boasts of 20 women faculty members who use this service. As an additional bonus, the university has also set up a daycare facility. For the academic year 2005, 7% or 151 members were women at the Hokkaido University. By the end of 2011 this number had shot up to 219, resulting to 10.5%; now the university hopes to raise this percentage by 20% for the year 2020. They are presently processing women-only recruitments in the field of science.
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