Women in Japan Want Promotions But Patriarchy Lurks in the Workplace

For the first time in Japan Airlines’ history it will have a woman as the president of the company. Tottori Mitsuko, 59, is about to be welcomed to the top role after joining the company in 1985 as a flight attendant and working her way up to senior managing executive officer. She will assume the presidency as of April 1.

It’s a major milestone for a country grappling with deep-rooted gender inequality in the corporate sector and society as a whole. But few women in Japan even get the opportunity to move up the corporate ladder. Japan has the lowest percentage of women in managerial roles of any OECD country, at just 8.3 percent. The World Economic Forum also indicated that progress on gender equality has stalled in Japan. Its 2023 Gender Gap Report ranked Japan 125th out of 146 countries, with the country slipping back nine places from its ranking at 116th place in 2022. 

Japan says it is committed to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace. In June last year the government presented a draft policy for women’s participation in the workforce and gender equality, stating that the promotion of women in corporations is “an urgent issue for the future growth of the Japanese economy.” The draft policy advises that companies introduce flexible working arrangements for employees with young children and normalize paid parental leave for men. However, these initiatives are not legally binding and depend on voluntary adoption.

At Japan’s Gender Equality Conference in December, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio set a new interim goal for large companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to have 19 percent of executives be women by 2025, and 30 percent by 2030. Again, this is not mandatory.

As a further incentive, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare launched an Eruboshi certification that rates companies engaged in promoting women. Telecommunications giant NTT, Cactus Communications, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, and Rengo paper manufacturing are some of the 1,000 companies that have received the highest three-star rating.

In 2016, the Act on the Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement was passed requiring large corporations as well as small- and medium-sized businesses to submit an action plan to help female employees balance childcare and career advancement. The legislation was limited to 10 years and will expire in 2026.

A record high 1.22 million women joined the workforce over the five-year period from 2017-2022. The Ministry for Internal Affairs attributed the increase to government policies that help mothers work while raising children.

However, it’s worth mentioning that a 2020 survey on the progress of workplace diversity found that 80 percent of full time employees were unaware of their company’ gender equality plans. The Japan Institute for Women’s Empowerment & Diversity Management (JIWE) found that only 32 percent of male employees and 40 percent of female employees were familiar with their company’s action plan for achieving work-life balance for women, as mandated by the 2016 law. JIWE’s research raises doubts over the effectiveness of Act on the Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement, with the level of awareness falling in proportion to the size of the company.

There is also the issue of the persistent gender wage gap, with women earning only 74 percent of men’s salary on average. Last year’s gender equality conference discussed expanding the public disclosure of wage information for medium-sized companies employing over 101 full-time employees. Currently, wage information is publicly available for companies employing over 301 full-time workers.

Experts say one major driver of gender disparity is the subconscious bias that a women’s role lies in the home and in child rearing. This is not unique to Japan. In an interview with Bloomberg, American technology executive Sheryl Sandberg said that gender bias can be seen in the way men and women receive promotions. According to Sandberg, “Men are promoted based on their potential, but women have to prove they already have that potential.” She added that the barrier for women is set higher, because “you can't prove you can be a manager until you are a manager.”

The authors of “The No Club” also found that women tend to accept more unrewarding work responsibilities due to feelings of guilt. Their study of employee hours at a large consultancy firm

showed that women spend on average 200 hours more each year than their male counterparts on tasks that do not help with career development – things like “planning the office party, screening interns, attending to that time-consuming client, or simply helping others with their work.” The authors concluded that women want management roles but find themselves unable to negotiate higher pay as a result of less productive work assignments.

The glass ceiling phenomenon means women tend to get overlooked when it’s promotion time. While Japan is making efforts to keep companies accountable for their hiring practices, it remains reluctant to impose fundamental reform or legally binding quotas on the corporate world. The responsibility for improving gender equality and women’s career development thus falls predominantly on Japanese companies, meaning progress continues to be slow.