Japan To Initiate New Policy: Companies Must Have 30% Of Female Board Members

Women's participation in the corporate world is something we need to work on. Despite of various provisions and efforts, the number of females in jobs and senior roles is still less as issues like workplace harassment, unequal pay, household responsibilities, and discrimination tend to discourage them. Japan is looking forward to improving this situation, here's what the government wants to do.

The Japanese government is aware of the low number of female workforce and in order to improve this, they are looking forward to introducing a new policy for big businesses in the country. Fumio Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan has reportedly said that the administration will soon set a target for the big companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to have female employees comprise more than 30% of its board members by the year 2030. This 7-year goal aims at making the corporate scene more diverse and inclusive and encourages women to take up senior roles in firms.

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Japan Policy On Female Board Members

The policy draft that was announced by the Council of Gender Equality on Monday mentioned that the lack of female leadership in Japanese private firms is an urgent issue that is hindering the economic growth of the country. It is to be noted that by July 2022, about 18.7% of firms listed on the Japanese Prime Market did not have a single female board member while only 2.2% of firms had more than 30% female board members. Japan also ranked 104 out of 190 countries in World Bank's report ranking countries based on economic opportunities for women in 2023.

The draft also mentions asking companies to appoint at least one female board member by 2025 and then increase their ratio to 30% by the next 5 years. The policy will focus on companies listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime Market. The administration is also working towards encouraging companies to hire more female executives, to support female entrepreneurs, and to improve childcare leave and part-time opportunities to encourage women to not quit their full-time job after childbirth.

The government is looking forward to getting this policy approved by the end of this month. The government is also working towards increasing the number of single-mother households that receive child-raising expenses and making it 40% by 2031.