Japan Press Weekly

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2013 May 8 - 14 [LABOR]

Fair employment will be step toward active use of women in workforce

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

Japan ranked 101st among 135 countries in regard to gender equality in 2012, according to a World Economic Forum report. The National Tax Agency’s statistics show that 43.2% of working women in Japan earned less than two million yen in 2011. The working women in the world’s third largest economy are at the world’s lowest level in economic status.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo claims that the growth strategies he is working on will highlight the active role of women in the workforce. To reach this goal, however, it will be vital to establish decent work rules for a good balance between work and family for both women and men and eliminate discrimination against women in employment.

As the first step, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act should be made more effective. In ongoing discussions on changes to the law, business circles are refusing to agree to the principle of balanced work and family to be inserted into the law. They are also seeing it as unnecessary to prohibit employers from having a work environment which indirectly hampers women’s promotion.

The Japanese government has no say in the financial community while many of the world’s governments are making efforts to improve women’s positions based on the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Japan ratified this treaty but not the Optional Protocol which enables individuals or groups to lodge complaints of violations and claim their rights under the Convention.

Prime Minister Abe says he will take steps to increase the percentage of men who can take childrearing leave from the present 2.63% to 13% in 2020. Male workers are, however, forced to make an achievement in a short period of time under the performance-based pay system and endure without complaint excessive hours of intensive work. Regulation on working hours is the key to enabling a higher percentage of men to take parental leave, but the government is moving ahead with the introduction of a mechanism to legalize unpaid overtime and no restrictions on the number of hours worked.

About 60% of women give up their careers because of the work-family imbalance. An advisory panel to the prime minister argues that regular employment has disadvantages for married women and considers adopting a new system under the pretext of the active use of women’s potential in the workforce. The system, however, will facilitate more low-paying jobs and more dismissals.

The government should meet the demands of women, not of the financial world, calling for improvement in the Equal Employment Opportunity Law to eliminate discrimination against women.