Tough for women to be political leaders in Japan

Whether or not she wins the 2016 race for the White House, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is an inspiration for women with political aspirations. But not every country is ready for a woman to take the top job.

A poll by Japanese daily Nikkei Shimbun shows 36.4 percent of the respondents do not expect to see a woman prime minister in Japan in a decade or two, because there are no qualified woman candidates among the lawmakers for the job today. In fact, there are very few women in the parliament to begin with.

The lower house, the more powerful chamber of Japan's parliament, has 45 women, or just 9.5 percent of the total. Japan has lagged behind much of the world in terms of women's power in national politics. The global average was 22.4 percent. As of Jan 1, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranked Japan 113 out of 190 countries as far as woman representatives in the lower house were concerned.