As wages go up, Japanese women reckon with a vast pay gap

Daiwa Securities

15/03/2023 08:14

By David Dolan and Makiko Yamazaki
       TOKYO, March 15 (Reuters) - 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. 
    Much of the problem, experts and government officials say,
is the lack of career advancement.
    When Kasumi Mizoguchi joined a top trading firm out of
university in 2015, she was dismayed by the gender disparity in
a rigid human resources system that classified employees as
either "career track" or "non-career track". Non-career workers,
who were all women, did the administrative work.
    While Mizoguchi was hired on the career track, she left
after two years, frustrated, and now works at an advertising and
design firm in London.
    "Hierarchy was one of the bigger reasons that I left -- just
feeling that you don't matter, that you don't have a say," she
said.
    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."
    BIG STAKES
    The issue is critical for Japan's economy, experts say, to
help address a chronic labour crunch as the population shrinks. 
    While women's labour force participation has increased in
recent years following the "Womenomics" reforms of former Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, more than half of all women work at
non-permanent jobs, according to government data. Those
positions tend to have fewer benefits, lower pay and shorter
hours.
    When women leave the workforce to have children, they often
return to a lower-paying position, or a part-time job.
        Chika Sasaki, a manager at a Tokyo-based wholesaler,
said there were too few women in leadership positions at her
office, and too few working mothers like herself.
        "Almost all of the people in senior management are men.
That's why I think there's a difference in salaries between men
and women," Sasaki said, declining to name her employer.
    "I don't think they care about it too much. I'm a manager
but I don't have anyone who is a role model."
        
    TALENTED WOMEN
    Brokerage Daiwa Securities Group Inc  8601.T  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.
    The firm made a deliberate decision to promote several women
at once so they could work together if they received pushback
from male colleagues, according to Chiharu Mori, director of
Daiwa's diversity and inclusion promotion office.
    "We are trying to address all kinds of gender gaps, not just
about pay, but everything," Mori said.
    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.    

    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Japan Inc is finally giving raises, just not to everyone    https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/japan-inc-is-finally-giving-raises-just-not-everyone-2023-01-18/
First raise for a Japanese day labourer in 20 years    https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/first-raise-japan-day-labourer-20-years-mcdonalds-out-reach-2023-01-20/
Japan's stubborn gender wage gap    https://tmsnrt.rs/3FoVyVX
Gender wage gap in the G7    https://tmsnrt.rs/3ZRwnDY
A majority of women work non-permanent jobs    https://tmsnrt.rs/3LoFhEk
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 (Reporting by David Dolan and Makiko Yamazaki; Additional
reporting by Rocky Swift, Miho Uranaka and Daniel Leussink;
Editing by Sam Holmes)
 ((david.dolan@thomsonreuters.com; +81 3 4563 2708;))