The Business Press – June 26, 2023 at 05:00PM
Representatives from each of the Group of Seven (G7) nations gathered in the Japanese city of Nikko, 70 miles north of Tokyo, this weekend for a two-day summit on gender equality and women’s empowerment, where they discussed everything from sexual violence to LGBT rights to economic imbalances. They vowed to reduce the wage gap and boost women’s representation in executive and managerial positions.
The awkward optics of the meeting highlighted Japan’s struggles with gender issues. Masanobu Ogura, a Cabinet minister, was Japan’s representative to the gender equality meeting and also served as the chair—he was also its only man. When asked how he felt being the only male representative, Ogura said that male leaders with strong enthusiasm for gender equality are still needed.
The summit in Nikko came only days after the World Economic Forum released its latest annual Global Gender Gap Index, which assesses the state of gender parity across four key metrics: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Japan, at 125th of 146 countries in the index, ranks the lowest among the G7 states, which also includes Germany (6th), the U.K. (15th), France (40th), the U.S. (43rd), and Italy (79th).
Japan has particularly struggled with women’s political empowerment. According to the WEF index, it’s one of only seven countries that have regressed on this metric since 2017. While the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has fielded several female candidates in recent elections, and some have been elected as lawmakers, men still make up about 90% of parliamentary and ministerial posts, and have never yet had a female head of state.
There is also a stark disparity in Japan’s boardrooms, where only 11.4% of executives in publicly listed companies are women. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised in April to raise that to 30% by 2030. Such efforts may not be enough though, as Japan’s gender equality record remains one of the poorest among developed nations.
The Business Press 