1 Populasi Volume 29 Issue 2 2021 Volume 29 Issue 2 2021 Page 1-15 Womenomics and Migrant Workers Policy: Can They Solve Labor Shortage in Japan? Emmanuel Pradipta and Bevaola Kusumasari Department of Public Policy and Management, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Corresponding Author: Emmanuel Pradipta (email: emmanuelpradipta@gmail.com) Abstract Aging population threatens economic conditions in Japan which results in a condition of labor shortage, furthermore the government provides Womenomics’ and accepting migrant workers policy to solve the issue. This research aims to give an understanding about Japan’s labor shortage condition and how it can be solved by Womenomics and accepting migrant workers. Therefore, this research emphasized the labor shortage conditions and the failure factors of Womenomics’ and accepting migrant workers in Japan. Essentially, this study applied the qualitative case study method by referring to the literature review conducted by previous studies. The findings of this research are meant providing suggestions to Japan’s government about how important it is to enforce appropriate policies to tackle labor shortages and to minimize policy failure of policy implementation. Keywords: aging population; labor shortage; womenomics; migrant workers; policy implementation Introduction As regards Japan’s population condition, Japan has experienced the phenomenon of aging population (Toru, 2013). Aging population happens when there are increasing number of unproductive ages or elderly who live in society compared to the productive ages or young generation in a country (Dallin, 2013). The Japanese population of elderly people is steadily increasing compared to the productive ages, thereby it can be categorized as an aging population condition (Dallin, 2013). There are two main reasons why Japan experiences an aging population, first technological advancement in medicine have led to Japanese people living longer; also, economic constraint such as expensive living costs have become the reason for low birth rates (Roser, 2013). Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world, and at the same time Japan has the lowest birth level in the world (Fukuda, 2016). In Japan, the percentage of elderly people aged 65 years old above surpassed 10% of the total population in 1985. In 2020, the total of population aged 65 years old above reached 28,8% from the total of population (Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2021). Therefore, Japan’s birth rate is declining and the country has to face the consequences of aging population (Konishi, Tamaki and Yoshinaga, 2018). There are two types of consequences from an aging population: social and