Japan's women hold key to growth Whatever else it may have been, Japan's general election was no step forward for female representation in parliament. Of the 480 seats contested in the Diet's lower house, only 38 will be filled by women. That is down even from the 54 who won entry to the chamber at the last vote in 2009. So it may come as something of a surprise to hear that the triumphant Liberal Democratic party - whose landslide victory was to blame for the widening Diet gender imbalance - claims to be keen on fuller female participation in the Japanese workforce. The LDP election manifesto includes in its fine print a commitment to the party's longstanding policy goal of raising the proportion of women in "leadership positions in all areas of society" to 30 per cent by 2020. Such worthy aims were overshadowed on the LDP's campaign trail by party leader Shinzo Abe's high profile pledges to boost the faltering economy with a programme of hefty public spending and a push for more aggressive monetary policy from the Bank of Japan. This package - dubbed "Abenomics" by some - has been welcomed by economists critical of the central bank's resistance to adoption of a binding inflation target and its reluctance to underwrite the deficit financing of the heavily indebted state. Advocates hope that a flood of newly minted money from the BoJ and a surge in demand created by government-ordered infrastructure investment will finally tame the deflation that has dogged Japan for much of the last two decades, creating the momentum for a sustained recovery. Yet even if this provides a much-needed boost to the economy - in the throes of a double-dip recession and still struggling to make up ground lost during a brutal 2008-2009 downturn - it is unlikely to prove a panacea. Restoring the mojo of the world's third largest economy will require more fundamental reforms to tackle in particular the rapid ageing and decline of the population - a demographic trend some say is the underlying cause of deflation. That is where the issue of women in the workplace comes in. While Japan's workforce is contracting and many sectors complain of skills shortages, the labour participation rate for women is a full 24 percentage points lower than that of men, according to a recent IMF working paper. Authors Chad Steinberg and Masato Nakane suggest that if Japan were to raise its female labour participation rate to levels already reached in northern Europe, then gross domestic product per capita could be permanently increased by as much as 8 per cent. Achieving anything like such levels would require changing attitudes among employers and women themselves, while dramatically improving childcare provision and making it easier for women to access and pursue fast-track careers. But as its unenthusiastic promotion of female electoral candidates suggests, the LDP remains conflicted about women in the workplace. In a telling gaffe, one health minister during Mr Abe's previous stint as prime minister in 2006-2007 referred to women as "baby-making machines." Party conservatives fear that equal treatment of women in the workplace could undermine traditional Japanese feminine virtues. Nor is female labour participation the only challenge obscured by Mr Abe's embrace of flashier economic prescriptions. Ahead of Sunday's election, the LDP was careful to stake out ambiguous positions on another issue central to Japan's economic future - trade liberalisation. Exporters - a vital engine of growth - are almost unanimous in calling on Tokyo to do more to join market-opening trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership, an emerging compact between the US and other regional economies. But Mr Abe's LDP has so far shown little willingness to upset agriculture interests that say liberalisation will accelerate the decline of the economically minor but politically influential farming sector. The only mention of the TPP in the LDP's manifesto was a line - slipped into the section on diplomacy rather than the one on economic policy - that opposed involvement in the trade pact unless "sacred areas" could be protected. Such caution may pay electoral dividends but even Mr Abe's fans will be disappointed if Abenomics turns out to mean merely making the BoJ print more money for his government to spend. To really help Japan out of its malaise will surely require braver use of the LDP's new mandate. Mr Abe should not be afraid to tackle vested interests. He does, after all, command a very large parliamentary majority - even if it is rather heavy on men.