Your comment made sense up until the last paragraph. I honestly see no connection between giving things to women and solving any of the problems we're discussing here. In fact it could make things worse by further saturating the job market, increasing living costs (e.g. restaurants replace home-cooked meals), and so on.

Japan's biggest issue is simple demographics and capital saturation, not conservative views on women in the workplace. In the past, when the economy was roaring, their views on women were even more conservative than now, and it clear didn't hold them back at that time.