Women accounted for 30.9 percent of government councils and committees at the end of September, clearing the government's 30 percent target set in 2000, Kuniko Inoguchi, minister in charge of sex equality and the falling birthrate, reported to the Cabinet Friday.
Of the 1,792 members on the central government's 104 panels, 554 were women, up 55, or 2.7 percentage points, from a year earlier, according to the Cabinet Office.
The government plans to review the 30 percent target and make a decision on whether to change it by March.
The government intended to achieve the 30 percent target by March 31, but the ratio at 76 of the panels already exceeds it, and three of them, including the Environment Ministry's independent administrative body assessment committee, are 42.9 percent female.
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