Editorial: Open doors for more women scientists

February 22 , 2021

One of the vaccines against the coronavirus is produced by Pfizer and the leader of the US pharmaceutical giant’s effort is Dr. Kathrin Jansen. While Pfizer’s vaccine was recently approved for use in Japan, other COVID-19 vaccines created by AstraZeneca and Moderna will soon follow—and they too boast numerous women researchers on their development teams.

Compared to other developed countries, Japan, sadly, falls far short in the number of and opportunities for women entering into the sciences. We need to make a serious and sustained effort to remedy the situation.

According to a home affairs ministry study, the ratio of women in Japan’s scientific research community stood at just 16.9% in fiscal 2019. In comparison, that ratio is 39% in the UK and 34% in the US.

Among the factors working against women researchers in general, reports UNESCO, is shorter terms of employment and lower wages. These obstacles are particularly evident in Japan.

And the shortage of women in the sciences and the perspectives they bring have had dire consequences. Take the simple case of automobile accidents: A 2019 University of Virginia study found that women wearing seat belts have a 73% greater chance of serious injury than men, in large part due to the predominant use of crash test dummies representing males when designing onboard safety features.

This country is in dire need of significant changes with regards to the hiring of women in the science and technology fields, a coherent campaign led by university and national laboratories and corporate research centers while being vigorously backed by the government.

February 11 marked the sixth year since the UN General Assembly adopted the “International Day of Women and Girls in Science.” For Japan, tangible results are long overdue.