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Where are Japan’s female leaders?

Bosses in Japan should consider assigning more leadership roles to women if they wish to boost their company’s success.

According to a report by Teikoku Databank, the average percentage of female executive members in a company is only 8.4%, with the number being fewer in large corporations and listed companies in the country.

Additionally, more than eight out of 10 (81.1%) of companies have fewer than 10% of women in their managerial positions.

The survey, which polled 11,017 companies across Japan, also found 76.6% of companies have fewer than 10% of women among their executive members.

However, when it came to the ratio women in the general workforce, the survey highlighted more than 30% of the employees in 27.7% of companies were women.

“The ratios of women in managerial or executive member positions are high in small-scale businesses, in the retail, real estate, finance, and service industries, as well as in non-listed companies,” the report stated.

It added that with the topic of women in the labor force receiving more attention in Japan, 45.4% of companies in the country reported they are now actively promoting women’s employment in their businesses and using women in their labour force.

The most common reason behind doing this (over 90%) was to use efficient human resources regardless of gender, according to the report.

Conversely, 31.2% of companies polled in the survey stated they are not promoting women’s employment, with over 40% stating this was because of a lack of qualified subjects and candidates.

Image: Shutterstock

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