Joe Biden suggested during a campaign speech that “xenophobia” is keeping Japanese women in the job market.

The 76-year-old Biden, drawing on his time working with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe while vice president, said that because Japan doesn’t allow many foreign workers to come in, women in the country must remain in the workforce.

“You cannot succeed as a country if you leave more than half of your brainpower on the sidelines,” Biden said Wednesday during a speech in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

“Japan is in a position where traditionally women are as well-educated as men, but the tradition was, once they had a child, they were to drop out of the job market,” he continued, noting that the traditional roles have changed under Abe.

“There’s an entire move, because they’re xenophobic — because they don’t want to invite other people from outside their country to come in and make up the workforce — they have fewer workers than they have a need for workers. And so, what they’ve done is they’ve decided to encourage women to stay in the job market,” Biden said.

Japan's foreign-born population has risen to an all-time high in recent years, but it still remains under 2%.





Biden is leading the pack of more than 20 candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. A RealClearPolitics national average of polls has the former vice president at 28.9% support.