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Writer's pictureAndrew Sipus

Does Japan Adhere to Equal Employment Opportunity Law for Women?

Updated: Jan 17, 2022

Despite Japan forming the Danjo kōyō kikai kintō hō 男女雇用機会均等法 or Equal Employment Opportunity Law throughout the 1970s and 80s, a roughly similar timeline to other developed nations, the ratio of females in leadership positions is shockingly low compared to their global counterparts. This makes one wonder; is the equal employment opportunity law being adhered to in Japan? The answer may have surprisingly more to do with culture than you may think.


As we have explored in previous articles, traditional gender roles are still deeply embedded in Japanese society. In an attempt to provide equal opportunities for men and women, Japan enacted the danjo kōyōkikai kintōhō (Equal Employment Opportunity Law) in order to promote gender equality in employment. The goal of the law is the equal treatment of men and women with regards to working conditions and career advancement opportunities.

Historically, women mostly held secretarial and assistant positions while the work that led to external business opportunities and career advancement was done by men. Women were expected to welcome guests, serve tea, make copies etc. Even if a woman tried to advance in the organization, they were paid less than their male counterparts - a problem common all across the world. The conservative thinking behind this is that women only enter the workforce so they can find a good partner (often a co-worker) but then as soon as they marry, leave the workforce to become a housewife. Even if they do not quit immediately upon marriage, they will most likely do so when they have children. Following this logic, there is no point in assigning long-term focused, career-track work to them, and it would be best to leave such work, as well as the manager positions, to men who will stay with the firm as they need to provide for their families in which the wife is typically at home taking care of the children and household. From a talent management perspective - especially in a traditional lifetime employment model - not investing in someone who will leave due to marriage or childbirth around 5-10 years after joining the company makes perfect sense.


This commonplace logic can and obviously has become a vicious cycle and self-fulfilling prophecy in Japan. Women firstly feel pressure to leave the workforce by their company and also are not given any career opportunities and lower pay to begin with. In that case it can be more attractive to them to do exactly that; leave the workforce and become a housewife which then in turn leads to reinforcement of this fallacy. Doubling-down on this, employers knowing that they will need to give equal opportunity to women but feel that doing so would somehow hurt their business will go to extreme lengths to make women appear less intelligent or capable than men, and therefore less deserving of equal employment. The terrifying reality of this flawed logic was recently witnessed in the 2018 scandal of a medical school intentionally lowering the scores of women so that it would almost exclusively cater to male students.


The Equal Employment Opportunity Law certainly protects women from being forced out of the company upon pregnancy. However, in reality the peer pressure and environment in the workplace can still be made hostile which leads to women opting out "voluntarily," simply to avoid the hassle and inconveniencing the people around them. While companies have to secure a position for their female employee looking to return from maternity leave, it often happens that their original position has already been backfilled with someone else and the employee now gets reassigned to a completely different team, department and/or position. This too, while adhering to the law, is another tactic employed by companies to force women out of the workforce.


So to answer the question originally stated by this article of whether or not Japan adheres to the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, the objective answer the majority of the time is surprisingly “yes.” However, as outlined with some key examples above, the appeal to cultural and traditional gender norms and narratives does not even give the law a fighting chance in the majority of cases. It is up to all of us to recognize that this is a cultural narrative being propagated by society as a whole, and if not proactively addressed, it will simply continue to be the pervasive logic.


Fortunately, it is not all bad news! Certainly, more and more leaders in Japan are becoming acutely aware of these societal narratives and not only speaking up against, but also proactively investing in female leaders. Shintaro Yamada, “the president of e-commerce marketplace operator Mercari Inc. said he will invest more than 3 billion yen ($27.3 million) of his own money to help reduce the gender gap in Japanese society.” Or Kathy Matsui, who has started a venture fund pledging $150 million dollars to help Japanese startups focus on ESG and female empowerment to go truly global. There are positive messages such as this popping up more and more in recent years. Most importantly however, it is upon all of us to contribute and speak up in any way we can to support the future careers of women in the workplace. Are you a working father? Good. Talk to HR about any benefits your company may be able to receive to help out with the kids and at home and be a true ikumen. Are you a female leader? Great. Create a ‘lean in’ group in your organization and develop a support network for your female colleagues.


The options are endless and the growth and change happens when we leave behind the notion of “but this is how we have always done things.”


What are some examples of how you have encountered the fallacies mentioned above in your current/former organizations and what did you do/wish you did to improve the situation? Feel free to share in the comments below!


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