The Dec. 14 national election was personally significant for me because, for the first time in my life, I voted. A bittersweet experience it was. I happened to be on a short-term sabbatical in Japan when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for the snap election. During the weeks leading up to it, I collected fliers, pored through local newspapers for candidate profiles, and debated with family and friends. Through the process, I learned that, despite the general disillusionment with Japanese politics, everybody had an opinion, one way or another. After some reflection, I walked to the local school on a crisp Sunday morning to cast my vote. I'm in my early 40s.
There's never a good excuse for not voting. It's an obligation for those lucky enough to live in a democracy. But it was the fortunate fact that I was able to vote domestically, rather than from abroad, that made the difference this time.
I chose to live abroad after I turned 20, the legal voting age in Japan. During the first 10 years of being old enough to vote, I didn't have full voting rights. Japanese living abroad were only granted limited voting rights for national elections in 1998. We weren't granted full voting rights until 2005 — when the Japanese Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to use nonresidence as a reason to limit voting rights.
By the time of the 2005 ruling, I was in a late stage of pregnancy with my first child while trying to complete an MBA in Europe. The next 10 years zipped by in a blur of dropping off kids at day care, work deadlines, business trips and laundry. Keeping up with Japanese politics from abroad and navigating procedures for overseas voting proved to be an impossibility.
Apparently I'm not alone. An estimated 1 million overseas Japanese are eligible to vote, but as of 2013, only 10 percent have registered to do so.
While the overseas Japanese population comprises only 1 percent of the total Japanese population, they are growing in number. There are several policy issues, such as constitutional revision, economic resuscitation, care for the elderly and support to raise the number of women in the workforce, that require a balanced perspective. It is imperative that the overseas Japanese opinion is reflected in the electoral process.
From my personal experience, facilitating the external voting process would be one tangible step toward increasing voter turnout in general. Currently the process for overseas voter registration can take up to three months, and involves going back and forth with embassy officials. Afterward there is the option of voting in person at an embassy or via post. All of this requires time and effort, and depends on one's proximity to an embassy and the hours it's open. For a working mother like myself, this effort is hampered by the lack of flexibility in my schedule, which is either constrained by working hours or children's schedules. Developing alternative methods to improve this process would be welcome. It is a baseline requirement for increasing participation by voters overseas.
Another issue is how Japanese people, particularly women, can remain politically engaged from abroad. I focus on women because I know how difficult it is to be politically engaged while trying to balance work and family life. With the Japanese political agenda focusing on keeping women in the workplace, it has never been as important as now for Japanese women to become involved. The percentage of women in Japan who work has steadily increased, surpassing that of the United States. But women in Japan earn significantly less than men, and mothers tend to drop out of the workforce. During my sabbatical in Japan, the main concerns I've heard among working women are work-life balance and parenting.
While I don't believe that it is only women who should involve themselves with women's issues, relevancy is an important motivator for political participation. For starters, women's status in Japan is a topic to which Japanese women abroad can relate and bring forth vital insight.
The questions I get asked most by working and nonworking Japanese women is "How do women abroad manage their work-life balance?" and "What type of child-care policies are available?" Women in Japan generally crave information that could be supplied by Japanese women living abroad.
In order to mobilize this external group of women, it's not enough just to make information accessible. It needs to be structured through relevant channels between Japanese women in Japan and those abroad. There is a rich resource of Japanese human capital residing outside of Japan. We have to find a way to incorporate it effectively. Japan's economic and political revival need not only to be homegrown.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.
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