Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 6 - 12 [LABOR]

Gender gap in wages grows wider in proportion to firm size

In Japan, the larger a company becomes in size, the wider the pay differential is between men and women, reported Akahata on March 7.

Findings released by the labor ministry indicate that the average monthly pay for male regular employees was 343,800 yen in 2012, while it was 252,200 yen for female workers.

The proportion of women’s pay to men’s was 73.4% in 2012. Although it has risen from 68.7% in 2005, the gap remains large.

In terms of the size of businesses, the ratio was 76.5% in small companies whose number of employees is under 100, 76.2% in medium-sized ones whose workforce totals between 100 and 999, and 71.2% in large corporations which employ 1,000 or more workers.

This shows that the pay disparity grows larger in proportion to the size of enterprises.

The Japanese Communist Party pointed out in its campaign in last December’s general election that Japan’s wage gap between men and women is at the highest level in the world. It stressed that big businesses, which have accumulated a huge amount of internal reserves, should take the lead in putting an end to gender discrimination in the workplace.


Related past articles:
> Gender gaps still exist after 27 years of equal job opportunity law [December 25, 2012]
> Gender gap in wages increasing in bigger companies [November 30, 2012]