No employers apply for Japan’s promotions-for-women scheme

The Japanese government has admitted that no companies have applied for a state subsidy offered as an incentive for promoting women to senior positions.

Under the terms of the programme, firms are eligible for a subsidy from the country’s Labor Ministry of up to ¥300,000 (around €2,500). The department had anticipated around 500 companies to apply.

The department blamed the conditions attached to the subsidy, which included providing staff with 30 hours’ equal opportunities training. The programme will now be relaunched with fewer conditions and higher payments.

Japan faces economic challenges caused by an aging population and a shrinking workforce, yet also has a very low rate of female workplace participation for a developed country. Prime minister Shinzo Abe has said women are the country’s “most under-utilized resource”, and has set a target for 30% of senior posts to be held by women by 2020. In 2014, the figure was only 8%.

Japanese women face a number of challenges in advancing their careers, including few concessions to work–life balance, and a culture of women taking responsibility for housework and child care. 70% of Japanese women leave work for a decade or more when they first have children, compared to 30% of American women.

Ghazala Azmat has written for IZA World of Labor about greater representation of women in decision-making teams. She writes that, while there is evidence that greater gender diversity has a short-term negative impact on firm performance, “The adverse results are explained by changes in the decision-making process and team dynamics, and in some cases by the inexperience of (new) female team members. As gender diversity becomes the norm, these problems may fade.”

Nina Smith has also written about the adoption of gender quotas for boards of directors. She writes that the research does not support quotas on the basis of economic efficiency, and that: “Policymakers may have to change their focus from requiring quotas for the top of an organization to the much broader task of getting a more balanced gender division of careers within the family, for instance by encouraging more fathers to take advantage of parental leave schemes.”

Read more on this story at The Japan Times and Quartz.

Related articles:
Gender diversity in teams by Ghazala Azmat
Gender quotas on boards of directors by Nina Smith

Find more IZA World of Labor articles about gender here