In rewarding Tokyo’s first female governor, Yuriko Koike, with a second term on Sunday, voters endorsed her highly visible leadership as the sprawling metropolis has avoided the kind of spiraling death toll from the coronavirus seen in other world capitals.

But a recent resurgence in cases in Tokyo has made clear that her challenge is far from over.

The umbrella body for women’s organisations in the country predicts that the gender gap, particularly in the areas of economic participation and political empowerment, will widen due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Twenty-five years after the landmark Beijing women’s conference, politics remains overwhelmingly the domain of men. Today, women are not even a quarter of all elected politicians in the world.

The Japanese government adopted Wednesday a set of policies on women, focusing on promoting their empowerment in the business and political arenas and helping single mothers secure child support from divorced husbands.

The policies stated that accelerating efforts to further increase the number of women in the boardroom and politics is a "matter of urgency" as the female presence in those areas has remained persistently low.