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Article

6 Aug 2007

Author:
Martin Fackler, New York Times

Career Women in Japan Find a Blocked Path

Since the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was passed in 1985, women...have had [little] success reaching positions of authority... In 1985, women held just 6.6 percent of all management jobs in Japanese companies and government, according to the International Labor Organization... By 2005, that number had risen to only 10.1 percent... Experts on women’s issues say outright prejudice is only part of Japan’s problem. An even bigger barrier...is the nation’s notoriously demanding corporate culture, particularly its expectation of morning-to-midnight work hours... [L]awsuits remain rare because of a cultural aversion to litigation. Another big problem has been that...the law includes no real punishment for companies that continue to discriminate. The worst that the Labor Ministry can do is to threaten to publish the names of violators, and the ministry has never done that... Still, women’s rights advocates say that the realities of Japan’s shrinking population are slowly forcing change. [refers to Teijin, Nissan supplier Daiya Seiki]