On his father's side, too, Abe's family tree was filled with well-liked politicians. His father's father, Kan Abe, served in Japan's House of Representatives, and his father, Shintaro Abe, was the country's minister of foreign affairs from 1982 to 1986 and was often mentioned as a potential prime minister himself. Shinzo Abe was more distantly related to another Japanese prime minister, Eisuke Sato, who served from 1964 to 1972 and was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
After studying political science at Seikei University in metropolitan Tokyo, Abe graduated in 1977. He headed for the United States in the late 1970s, taking English-language and political science classes at the University of Southern California. Abe returned to Japan in 1979 and worked for the Kobe Steel corporation for three years, but it was not long before he returned to the family vocation. In 1982 he entered the political world as an executive assistant in the foreign affairs ministry. After that he set his sights on ascending through the hierarchy of Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP.