The Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.
In recent years, many economists and government officials in Japan have focused on harnessing the power of working women as an offset to the projected decline of the labor force.
According to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Japan, the country's prime working-age population is forecasted to shrink 30% by 2060, particularly as there is little immigration to supplement the birth rate.
BNY Mellon Investment Management sees this as an investment opportunity.
The firm recently launched the Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund, which is a mirror to a fund that launched in Japan four years ago.
"The reason we're [launching this fund in the U.S.] now is that we find that our investor base — both on the institutional and the retail side — really has a hunger for thematic-type funds or funds with an [environmental, social and governance] component," Alicia Levine, chief strategist at BNY Mellon Investment Management, told ThinkAdvisor. The Womenomics Fund "meets the criteria of having a [four-year] track record we can talk about in the prospectus and also meets the growing interesting everywhere … in investing more thematically."
The fund normally will invest in Japanese-listed companies that BNY Mellon Asset Management Japan Ltd. — who will subadvise the fund — believes will benefit from the Japanese Government's "Womenomics" initiative.
Miyuki Kashima, a portfolio manager of the new fund, told ThinkAdvisor that "the Womenomics fund is really interesting because I think perhaps in the States you really don't hear much about what's happening in terms of improvement in the gender gap [in Japan]."
The Womenomics initiative seeks to enhance economic growth in Japan through improved gender parity in the workforce. It includes efforts to ease barriers to female employment outside the home, promote women to leadership positions, and close the gender pay gap. Recent government policies to support the initiative have included a labor reform law, expanding day care facilities, and a law requiring action plans from companies of a certain size to increase female employment.
Kashima explained that Japan's "prime minister top-down has said that we need more women to participate in the workforce, to promote more women to leadership positions, and really get them involved, [and] reduce the gender pay gap."
For example, Japan has principal targets for 2020 that include raising the female employment rate from 68% to 73% in the 25- to 44-year-old age group, and raising the percent of women in leadership positions to 30%. The Japanese government increased childcare leave benefits and rolled out an infrastructure plan to open an incremental 500,000 spots in day care facilities by 2019.
