A Japanese medical school has been accused of manipulating the test scores of female applicants for years to artificially depress the number of women in the student body, a scandal that has triggered sharp criticism.
The revelations have highlighted institutional barriers that women in Japan still face as they pursue work in fields that have long been dominated by men.
Tokyo Medical University reduced the test scores of women to keep their numbers at about 30 percent of entering classes. For the 2018 school year, 8.8 percent of men and 2.9 percent of women were accepted, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed source as saying that school administrators justified the practice out of the belief that women were more likely to drop out of the profession after marriage or childbirth.
[Others argue that] rather than artificially depressing the number of women who become doctors, more steps should be taken to help them stay in the profession, such as expanding access to child care. While more nurseries are available on medical school campuses, it is not always practical to bring children on long, crowded train rides each day. And child care is difficult to find in many neighborhoods, leaving mothers who are studying or working with few options.