"As wages go up, Japanese women reckon with a vast pay gap" 16 March 2023

As Japanese companies offer their heftiest wage raises in decades, women in the world's third-largest economy are hoping it won't take as long to close the vast gap in pay with men.

Wages have hardly budged since the late 1990s due to years of deflation and stop-start growth. But it's even tougher for women, who make around 78% of what men earn.

That gender wage gap is the worst among the Group of Seven nations and almost double the OECD average.

[...]

Only 9.4% of managers are women, according to research firm Teikoku Databank, despite women accounting for around a third of full-time workers. The government wants to increase the ratio of women managers to around 30% by 2030, a decade later than it previously targeted.

The percentage of women in senior executive roles is higher, at 13%.

There are signs of improvement. Under disclosure rules introduced last year, bigger companies are required to report their wage gap annually. From this year they will have to disclose more information in regulatory filings, and in some cases disclose the ratio of women in management positions.

The government makes the information available online, allowing job seekers to scrutinise potential employers.

"The fact that companies have to disclose puts pressure on them," said Akiko Kojima, a specialist at The Japan Research Institute. "It is meaningful, but it is not enough. If companies just disclose the data but don't increase the number of women managers, the gap won't narrow."

[...]

Brokerage Daiwa Securities Group Inc [...] in 2005 started a programme to help female employees after its then president realised too many talented women were struggling to balance their careers and families.

It extended maternity leave to three years and took measures to promote re-hiring women.

In 2009, four women were among the 13 employees promoted to senior managing director that year, one of whom has since joined the board.

[...]

Daiwa encourages employees to leave the office before 7 p.m. and has made paternity leave mandatory, rare measures in Japan.

So far it has been difficult for ESG investors - who are increasingly concerned with the gender gap - to engage with many Japanese companies on the issue, said Tomohiko Sano, head of Japan ESG research at JPMorgan Securities.

Those that do disclose tend to already be high performing companies, he said.

"It's hard for investors to convince companies about the benefits of these efforts," he said.