Attracting and Retaining Young Japanese Women in Robotics

Japan is well known for having one of the lowest percentages of women pursuing careers in engineering (<10%), both in industry and at the academic level. Although some efforts have been made to attract women, cultural traditions are still too strong to be tackled, and only a few girls enter universities to study engineering (~11% versus 65% in social science and literature). Despite efforts to increase it, this figure has been stable for the past ten years. For mechanical engineering, the percentage drops to less than 10%, making female students, faculties, and professionals almost marginal. © 1994-2011 IEEE.