
A meeting of the Gender Equality Council is held at the Prime Minister’s Office in April 2021.
1:00 JST, June 6, 2023
The government has set a goal for large Japanese companies to have at least 30% of their executives be women by 2030, according to a draft compiled by the Gender Equality Council.
The goal applies to companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Prime market. The government is aiming to create momentum toward women being promoted more broadly.
The draft is for a key policy aimed at encouraging women’s participation in the labor force and improving gender equality. It will be reflected in the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform, to be adopted by the Cabinet by the end of the month.
The draft states that private companies in Japan are “lagging far behind internationally” in the promotion of women to executive positions.
Now that investors in Japan and abroad are increasingly looking at gender ratios for company executives, “It is urgent for these firms to accelerate the promotion of women to executive posts for the growth of the Japanese economy,” the draft notes.
As a specific measure, the council is requesting that companies listed on the TSE’s Prime market appoint at least one female board member by 2025. It has also called for action plans to ensure that at least 30% of executives at each company are women by 2030.
In order to ensure the plans’ effectiveness, the council will arrange with the TSE to incorporate these goals in the TSE regulations by the end of this year.
As for gender pay disparities, it became mandatory in 2022 for companies with 301 or more employees on a regular basis to disclose relevant information. The draft includes a plan to explore expanding this to companies with 101 to 300 employees.
To ease the burden of child-rearing on women, the council also stressed the need to have more men take childcare leave and to entrench the concept of dual-income couples sharing in child-rearing labor.
The draft also stipulates the establishment of a benefits system to ensure that take-home pay will not be reduced when parents with children under 2, regardless of gender, work shorter hours.
As one of the TSE’s three segments, the Prime market is for large companies that operate internationally, while the Standard market is for businesses that mainly operate domestically and the Growth market is for emerging companies. Listing criteria for the Prime market are the strictest among the three segments, requiring companies to have stocks with a tradable share market capitalization of at least ¥10 billion. As of Friday, there were 1,835 companies listed on the Prime market.
"Politics" POPULAR ARTICLE
-
Japan Defense Ministry Team to Discuss Drones, AI in Combat; Will Learn From Ukraine War, International Cooperation
-
ASDF Transport Planes Arrive in Djibouti, Setting Up Evacuation of Japanese from Iran, Israel
-
Japan Survey Finds Only 22% of Respondents Trust U.S.; Significant Drop From Joint Poll After Election
-
Poll: Japan’s LDP Likely to Lose Seats in Proportional Representation Segment; DPFP, Sanseito Expected to Gain More Seats in Upper House
-
Upper House Election: 16 Constituencies See Head-to-head ‘Ruling vs Opposition’ Races; Opposition Parties More Coordinated than 3 Years Ago
JN ACCESS RANKING
-
Japan’s Agriculture Ministry Starts Survey of Rice Farmers Across Japan on Production Outlook
-
Japan Eyes Hosting Major International Standards Conference in 2029; Govt Making Plans to Host IEC Event in Yokohama
-
Agriculture Minister Considers Review of Japan’s Rice Harvest Statistics (UPDATE 1)
-
Japan’s Core Inflation Hits 2-year High, Keeps Rate-Hike Bets Alive
-
Carmakers’ Anxiety Grows as U.S. Tariff Talks Stall;Japan Exporters May Have No Choice But to Raise Prices