Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman, denies he was harking back to the wartime era by associating reproduction with national wellbeing

The Japanese government’s top spokesman has rebutted charges of sexism after he called on women to contribute to their country’s wellbeing by having more babies.

The remarks by Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, drew accusations that he was encouraging a return to the wartime era, when political leaders encouraged women to reproduce to support the country’s militarist ambitions.

Commenting on the recent celebrity marriage between the singer Masaharu Fukuyama and the actor Kazue Fukiishi, Suga said: “With their marriage, I am hoping that mothers will contribute to their country by feeling like they want to have more children. Please have many children.”

His remarks, made on Fuji TV on Tuesday, came as Abe continues his push to involve more women in the workforce and to boost the share of women in leadership positions in the public and private sector to 30% by the end of the decade.

Japan performs poorly in international gender equality comparisons. In the World Economic Forum’s 2014 gender gap index, it ranked 104th out of 142 countries. At 64%, Japan’s female participation rate in the labour force, compared with 84% for men, is one of the lowest among the 34 leading economies that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Women account for just over 6% of management positions in Japan, according to a survey of 11,000 companies by Teikoku Databank. That compares with 34% in the UK and 44% in the US, Japanese government statistics show.

After being challenged by journalists, Suga said he was simply trying to communicate his joy at Fukuyama and Fukiishi’s marriage. “Since I was asked about my reaction to their marriage, I made the comment, hoping that everybody would be happy about the news because they are immensely popular and a big couple,” Suga told reporters, according to the Asahi newspaper.

“It’s obvious that getting married and having children is a matter of personal freedom. I believe that it’s a government’s job to establish a society where people feel comfortable about having and raising children.”

He described suggestions that he was harking back to the wartime era as “completely wrong”, adding that his remarks were consistent with recent government moves to make it easier for women to receive fertility treatment.

Japan suffers lowest number of births on record as population shrinks Read more

Suga is not the first senior Japanese figure to suggest that women’s primary role is to reproduce. In 2007, during Abe’s first stint as prime minister, his then health minister, Hakuo Yanagisawa, described women as “birth-giving machines” and urged them to “do their best” to halt the country’s declining birthrate.

Although the number of newborns rose slightly in the first half of this year, at an average of 1.4, Japan’s birthrate – or the number of children a woman of child-bearing age is expected to have – is still far below the average rate of 2.1 experts say is needed to keep Japan’s population stable.

The population, now around 128 million, is expected to fall to 86.7 million by 2060 if the fertility rate remains around current levels, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Tokyo. By the same year, almost four in 10 Japanese will be aged 65 or over, the institute said.

