In Japan last year, women working full-time in the country made 70-80 per cent of the wages earned by their male counterparts, the government survey said.
The 20-30 per cent difference highlights the country’s difficulties in achieving gender equality in the workplace. In Japan, the gap is narrowing, but Japan is still behind some European countries such as Sweden, which has achieved more than 90 per cent parity.
The figure reflects that the number of women working in senior positions in Japan is still low, while the average length of employment for women is shorter than for men. The survey also said the smallest gender wage gap was in Kochi Prefecture at 80.4, while the largest gap was in Tochigi Prefecture at 71.0. The average wage level for women in Japan was 74.8 compared to 100 for men.
Regional differences in wage levels between men and women are seen as one reason why more working women are choosing to move to urban areas such as Tokyo, where there are more jobs and higher wages than in rural Japan.
The government has set a goal of increasing the proportion of women in leadership positions to at least 30 per cent by 2030. The percentage of women in such positions rose to 10.9 per cent in a recent survey, surpassing 10 per cent for the first time, according to private research firm Teikoku Databank Ltd.
This is the first time the Japanese government has published a gender pay gap index since companies with 301 or more employees required to provide such data in 2022. The data comes at a time when Japan’s rapidly aging population is expected to further exacerbate labour shortages, with the aim of encouraging more women to enter the workforce.
In the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, Japan ranked 116th out of 146 countries, the only G7 country not ranked in the top 100.
