Japanese Women. In contrast to America's 'missing men,' Japan has made great strides in increasing female labour force participation in recent years. As recently as the year 2000, Japanese female labour force participation was about 10 percentage points lower than the US rate. Now, though, the Japanese rate is significantly higher (see graph below). FRED Percent 75 70 18 55 50 - Activity Rate: Aged 15-64: Females for Japan - Activity Rate: Aged 15-64: Females for the United States 1905 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 2015 fred stloulsted.org 2020 The textbook doesn't talk much about decisions to participate in the labour force", so for an explanation of why the Japanese female participation rate has risen, please read the article "Japanese women are working more, but few are getting ahead" (from the Economist on 18/11/2017 - reproduced along with this tutorial sheet). (a) What are some of the factors given in the Economist article to explain the increased female participation rate? (b) What are some non-explanations for the fact that Japanese women are more likely to be in the labour force than American women? (I.e. things you might have thought would explain it, but which don't actually explain it.) (c) Given your answers to parts (a) and (b), can you understand why these issues might not be discussed in the textbook? Discuss.