Japan’s only top female earner is American
ONLY one female executive made it to the top-earner list of Japan’s Nikkei 225 companies last year.
American Nicole Seligman, president of Sony Corporation of America and Sony Entertainment, is the only woman among the 185 executives who earned ¥100m ($978,000) or more.
Casio Computer president Kazuo Kashio earned the most, with ¥1.2bn in compensation, and Canon chairman Fujio Mitarai was second with ¥1.1bn, according to data on the pay of executives at Japan’s 225 biggest companies in the last reporting period.
The absence of Japanese women in the top echelons of business reflects challenges the country faces in boosting the number of female leaders as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledges to fill 30% of management positions with women by 2020. It is also a result of lower female labour participation in a nation known for long working hours, a shortage of childcare facilities and a culture in which women in workplaces are often relegated to serving tea.
“It’s becoming clear that Japan’s economic growth won’t be sustainable if we don’t utilise women in the workforce,” Doshisha University professor Akira Kawaguchi said.
Women on average accounted for 6.2% of management positions, according to a survey of 11,017 Japanese companies by Teikoku Databank, Japan’s largest credit research company. About 52% of companies surveyed did not have any female managers, it said.
Women fill 34% of management positions in the UK and 44% in the US, according to a Japanese government report.
Even as Japan’s female labour force participation rate rose to a record 64% as of June, it is still lower than the 82% rate for men, according to the internal affairs and communications ministry.
Japan’s gender wage gap is the second widest among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries,
trailing only Korea, where it is 37%. The 27% gap in Japan compares with 19% in the US and 6.2% in New Zealand, the lowest gap among members.
Mr Abe plans to bring more women into the workforce as part of his growth strategy for the world’s third-largest economy as the country’s population declines.
Men and women in Japan start off with the smallest wage gap. A woman aged 20-24 at the beginning of her career makes about 86% of a male colleague’s salary, according to the National Tax Agency. That percentage drops to about 50% for women in their 40s and remains at that level.
That compares with women in the US earning 77% of what their male counterparts make, according to the US Census Bureau.
The wage gap between men and women in Japan is partly due to a hiring system adopted by large corporations that divides employees into career and noncareer groups, Prof Kawaguchi said. Those in the career group will advance and become managers, while the noncareer group will be in charge of assisting others, he said.
Men accounted for 88% of those hired for the career route, while women represented 86% of noncareer hiring in 2011, according to a report by the health, labour and welfare ministry.
Economic growth under Mr Abe and local government efforts to cut waiting lists for childcare saw the number of working women rise by 470,000 last year to 27-million.