🇯🇵 2026 Women's Health & Beyond Conference - Japan

The Women’s Health & Beyond Conference in Tokyo hosted by FemTech Community Japan took place on Friday, 8^th February 2026, with FemTech Association Asia invited as an honoured guest and contributing Knowledge Partner.

The inspiring overall theme was Japan’s renewed focus on women’s empowerment and women’s health as imperatives sitting at the intersection of three national priorities: economic resilience, workforce participation, and population decline.

Economic Resilience

Globally, closing gender gaps in employment and health is estimated by the World Economic Forum to contribute up to US$1TN in GDP uplift, with Japan accounting for approximately US$53BN of that opportunity. In a mature economy facing structural labour shortages, women’s health is increasingly understood as a lever for sustained economic participation, not just social equity.

Since 2017, Japan has been running the APT Women Programme, an initiative funded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government designed to strengthen women’s economic participation and support female entrepreneurs in scaling their businesses and expanding overseas. The programme reflects a clear policy recognition that women-led companies, particularly in femtech, healthcare, life sciences, and consumer health, are critical to Japan’s future competitiveness. Beyond access to capital, the programme emphasises internationalisation, cross-border partnerships, and leadership capability. A distinctive feature is its overseas dispatch component, where selected participants are sent to global innovation hubs such as Singapore and New York to gain first-hand exposure to international markets, investors, and partnerships.

Workforce Participation

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government became the first local government in Japan to establish an ordinance specifically aimed at advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marking a significant policy milestone. Momentum accelerated in January 2026, when leaders from large enterprises and SMEs across Japan joined Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo since 2016, in pledging collective leadership through a Joint Declaration to advance women’s empowerment. With more than 200 companies already endorsing the declaration, the initiative signals growing alignment between public policy and private-sector action.

The ordinance focuses on creating workplace environments where women can fully demonstrate their individual strengths, skills, and leadership potential. This includes initiatives supporting health issues unique to women such as menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum return to work, and menopause, as well as addressing structural workplace norms often disproportionately impeding women’s career progression like long working hours, limited flexibility, and inadequate support for health and caregiving.

For the femtech ecosystem, this matters. Corporate endorsement can create enterprise-scale demand for solutions like in digital health platforms, workplace health benefits, fertility and menopause support, or preventative care. The policy demonstrates the belief that if corporate practices change, societal attitudes and behaviours will follow. By embedding women’s health and wellbeing into workplace reform, Tokyo is positioning women’s health not as a “welfare issue,” but as an economic and productivity imperative.

Population Decline

Japan’s population decline is one of the most pressing drivers behind these initiatives. With birth rates falling a 10th straight year and the fertility rate near historic lows and the working-age population shrinking, policies that support women’s health across the full life course—from reproductive years through menopause—are no longer optional. They are foundational to economic sustainability.

This creates a powerful opening for femtech innovation. Solutions that improve maternal health, support fertility journeys, enable healthier ageing, and keep women active in the workforce longer align directly with national policy objectives. In Japan, women’s health is a strategic response to demographic reality.

Japan as an Industry Blueprint

Japan’s approach offers a blueprint for the region: policy-led demand creation, corporate accountability, and economic framing of women’s health. For founders, investors, and ecosystem builders across Asia, Japan demonstrates how women’s health can be embedded into national growth strategies, unlocking both social impact and long-term economic value.