At a campaign stop before the recent special parliamentary election that gave his government a renewed majority, Mr. Abe’s gaffe-prone finance minister, Taro Aso, said Japan’s demographic problems were caused by “not having children.” Although he did not specify who was at fault, the comment elicited an outcry. The leader of the largest opposition party said “statements that appear to blame women who cannot have children are unforgivable.”

The United States and Europe face similar challenges. National policies have largely failed to address pay inequalities or create broad support systems for working mothers.

But the gender gap in Japan is more pronounced. The national birthrate is just 1.4 children per woman, among the lowest in the world and well below the level needed to ward off a sharp decline in population in the coming decades. And when Japanese women do have children, they quit their jobs more often than mothers in other industrialized countries, leaving a hole in an already dwindling work force.

While many mothers start working again once their children reach school age, most take up low-paid part-time or contract jobs. This, experts say, helps explain why Japanese women earn 40 percent less than men on average and occupy only one in 10 management-level positions.

In September, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said significant steps to close the gender gap could increase Japanese economic growth by a quarter of a percentage point. That is not small in a country that has averaged less than 1 percent growth for the last two decades.

“Japan is using only half its population, so how can it compete internationally?” said Mikiko Fujiwara, a former investment banker who runs career seminars for female employees at businesses and local governments. Demand for her services, she said, has increased since Mr. Abe began pushing his message of female empowerment on corporate executives. “They didn’t think it was worth the money to specifically train women before, but that’s changed.”

Image Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has vowed to make it easier for women to work, including supplying more child care. Credit... Yuya Shino/Reuters

Mr. Abe’s record so far is mixed. In September, he appointed five women to his cabinet, equaling the largest number on record. Yet the majority belonged to the most socially conservative wing of his party, which opposes feminist causes like changing Japan’s male-only royal succession and allowing husbands and wives to keep separate surnames. Two of the women resigned in October, facing campaign-funding scandals.