Japan: Japan’s prime minister Mr. Fumio Kishida has announced a goal of having nearly one-third of executive positions at top Japanese companies held by women by the end of the decade.

The objective appears to be an effort to address the country’s poor track record on gender equality before the G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima in May 2023. According to Mr. Kishida, promoting greater boardroom diversity will strengthen Japan’s position as the world’s third-largest economy.

“We seek to have the ratio of women among executives at 30 percent or more by 2030 in companies that are listed on the Tokyo stock exchange’s prime market including the minister of state for gender equality – who is male – at a meeting this week. His 19-member cabinet includes just two women,” the Prime Minister told officials.

“Securing diversity through promoting women’s empowerment and enabling innovation as a result is crucial to achieving new capitalism and an inclusive society,” Mr. Kishida added.

Japan has received criticism for the lack of women in senior roles in both the private and public sectors. According to a recent cabinet office survey, women accounted for just 11.4 percent of executives in major Japanese listed companies in the previous year, although the percentage has been slowly increasing.

Parties have attempted to recruit more women to run for office in politics since the 2018 gender equality law required them to “make efforts” to select equal numbers of male and female candidates. Despite these efforts, Japan’s corporate sector still lags behind comparable economies, and the country has struggled to close the gender pay gap, as evidenced by its low ranking of 116th out of 146 countries in the 2022 Global Gender Gap report by the World Economic Forum.

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