Japan Press Weekly

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2022 January 26 - February 1 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Only 2 out of 27K companies set numerical targets to narrow gender gap in wages

It was revealed on January 31 that only two companies on a government database regarding women's participation in their company make public their numerical targets to narrow the gender gap in wages based on the Act on Promotion of Women's Participation and Advancement in the Workplace.

The Labor Ministry added this information as a supplementary explanation to the Labor Minister's answer to a question made at an Upper House Budget Committee meeting last December by Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Yamazoe Taku.

At the committee meeting, Yamazoe asked Labor Minister Goto Shigeyuki how many companies on the ministry's database set a goal to eliminate their gender difference in pay. Goto answered, "At least seven," out of about 27,000 companies which have an action plan based on the law.

Five out of the seven firms set abstract objectives using expressions like "aiming at redressing the gender imbalance" and "reducing gender differences". Only two enterprises give specific numerical goals. The two companies, respectively, plan to "increase wages for women employees to more than 65% of that for male employees" and plan to "curb the average hourly wage disparity between women and men below 100 yen".

Yamazoe pointed out that extremely few companies present concrete numerical targets to rectify the gender differentials in wages. He demanded that the government attach importance on the need to eliminate the wage gap between women and men, and set concrete numerical targets with a time deadline. He also demanded that the government oblige companies to figure out how much difference in pay and benefits there is between their female and male workers, publish the difference, and draw up a plan to correct the difference.

Past related article:
> Gender gap in average annual wage is 2.4 million yen in Japan[December 21, 2021]