Centuries-old single-sex education is slowly being eroded in Japan as a string of traditionally women-only universities transition to co-education models to beat declining enrolments, but experts have warned that it might not be enough to turn the tide.

Japan’s largest female institution, Mukogawa Women’s University, is among those making the switch, planning to admit men when it rebrands as Mukogawa University in April 2027.

Heian Jogakuin University in Kyoto will go co-educational from 2028 while, earlier this year, Gakushuin Women’s College officially integrated into the co-educational Gakushuin University as a new faculty for intercultural studies.

Recently, Kinjo Gakuin University, a private women’s university in Nagoya, became the latest institution to announce its transition to co-education from April 2029.

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Universities have started admitting male students mainly because of a declining birthrate, which dropped to a record low of 1.14 children per family in 2025 and has squeezed enrolments.

However, Miyoko O. Watanabe, executive trustee at Nihon University in Tokyo, said this was “not the only reason” why women’s universities are reorienting their mission. 

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“There is a growing recognition in Japan that admitting both male and female students, rather than educating only women, is necessary,” she said. 

Watanabe said established co-educational institutions have been targeting women in recent years, making them more accessible and undermining the appeal of women-only providers.

She pointed to initiatives such as recruiting female faculty members and increasing admission quotas specifically for women, particularly in fields such as engineering, where women are historically under-represented.

Watanabe said this showed how the shift toward co-education is “also driven by the goal of promoting diversity”.

The number of women’s universities in Japan has reduced by one-third since 1998, standing at 66 in 2025.

Kinjo Gakuin was part of a trio of renowned former women’s universities in Nagoya. Now only one of the trio, Sugiyama Johakuen University, will educate women only.

This announcement came as a “shock” to Chisato Kitanaka, associate professor of sociology at Hiroshima University.

“All eyes were on Sugiyama and Kinjo, which had distinct identities, to see what strategies they would adopt,” said Kitanaka.

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“Both Sugiyama and Kinjo attracted female students from middle-class and above families and were known for having their own affiliated junior and senior high schools.”

Many women’s universities are part of a wider “network” of single-sex feeder schools, and their closure disrupts the wider education ecosystem of which they are part.

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David McNeill, professor of communications at the University of the Sacred Heart, a private, Catholic women’s liberal arts university in Tokyo, explained that there is a “whole network of Catholic Sacred Heart schools”, which is why “it would be a real jolt for us to try and pull away from that system, because of the pipeline”.

McNeill added that these historic networks as well as the cultural legacy of women’s universities makes them unique.

“They came around at a time when women's education was not especially valued. Women were not expected really to be educated; they were expected to become housewives and so on.”

Although McNeill has “tried at various points” to suggest that the university opens up to boys, he told Times Higher Education that he has noticed “interest from parents who are worried about their daughters” in recent years.

“They want some place where their girls are going to be safe, and the idea of girls going to a co-ed university frightens some parents.

“We’ve had enquiries from some students who say that they’re attracted to the idea of a safe space where they can experience Tokyo.”

Futao Huang, professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University, shared the view that “something may be lost when a long-established women’s university becomes co-ed”.

He said the decision does not reflect the value of female-only education but rather the “demographic and institutional pressures” of running a tertiary-level institution in Japan.

“With the declining 18-year-old population, recruiting from only half the potential student population is increasingly difficult.

“At the same time, the distinctive role of women’s universities has weakened as women now have far wider opportunities across Japanese higher education,” said Huang.

Nagoya Aoi University (formerly Nagoya Women’s University) has experienced a one-third uplift in enrolment since it started admitting male students in April 2025.

But Hiroshima’s Kitanaka said it was “impossible” to predict whether other universities would fare quite so well. In the case of Kinjo Gakuin, Kitanaka feared: “Its identity as a women’s university is simply too deeply ingrained.”

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Huang also expressed caution: “For institutions strongly identified as women’s universities for generations, changing the name and formal admission policy may be much easier than changing the public image. It could take quite a few years to attract substantial numbers of male students.”

rosalind.skillen@timeshighereducation.com