By Alecsandra Tubiera
There will always be a call for more women in the workforce, and as times are changing, it is evident that women are now leading the top enterprises in the market. In Japan today, more women are getting employed, and this could mean a transformation for the country’s economy. However, not all of them is in full-time job, and women are still working hard in the climbing up the ladders of the corporate world.
Progressive gender equality in the workplace?
Japan’s population is continuously shrinking and ageing, and the country has decided to continue to grow its workforce despite the issue. Since the population’s peak in 2010 at 128 million, it has now decreased by 1.3 million people. Additionally, its population is made largely by the elderly: 28 percent are over 65, compared to 18 percent in the UK and 15 percent in the US.1
The country’s female employment rate has been a key contributor, as a higher proportion of women are also returning to work sooner after having children than they were previously in 2002. A government policy has aided this, by increasing the number of nursery places and making provision for all 3 to 5-year-olds free by 2021. A law passed in 2015 demands that larger firms set targets for hiring and promoting women. Other legislation caps overtime at 100 hours a month, a move designed to both prevent over-work and generate new roles where demand clearly exists.
“Highly educated women quit because it’s not worthwhile keeping that ‘stupid’ job,” said Machiko Osawa.
Women in Japan usually end up in the non-career roles, which involve administrative jobs with hardly any upward mobility. “Highly educated women quit because it’s not worthwhile keeping that ‘stupid’ job,” said Machiko Osawa, a labor economist at Japan Women’s University in a CNN report.2
The government is currently way behind the raft of targets PM Shinzo Abe set three years ago, which included the goal of women holding at least 30 percent of senior positions in all parts of society by 2020, since it is already 2019.
However, this situation has been gradually improving, with roughly 66 percent of Japanese women are working, according to Kathy Matsui of Goldman Sachs in a report from CNN. It is still below the 80 percent of men working in the country.3
In a study by Kazuo Yamaguchi, a Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, his analysis of the gender wage gap found that gender differences in employment type—specifically the larger proportion of women than men employed in non-regular positions—explain only 36 percent of the gender wage gap.
“The primary factor is the gender wage gap within full-time regular employment, which accounts for more than half of the overall gender wage gap. The elimination of the gender wage gap among regular workers is therefore a more pressing issue than fixing the overrepresentation of women in non-regular employment,” said Yamaguchi in his article.4
A major cause of the gender wage disparity of Japanese regular employees is the lack of female managers. According to the 2016 Basic Survey on Equality of Employment Opportunity by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, women hold 6.4 percent of the positions of department director or equivalent; 8.9 percent of section head or equivalent; and 14.7 percent of task-unit supervisor or equivalent.5
Gender equality trends Japan can adopt
Working to get more women on executive boards
In countries that have an average of three women on large company, all but one also has mandated quotas, according to a report from Bloomberg. Having board quotas for women may be a step in the right direction towards equality in the workplace. In the U.S., California was the first state to require at least one woman on executive boards, and it may help pave the way for other states, as well as countries to follow suit.6
Fortune 500 companies with the highest number of women directors reported a 42 percent greater return on sales and a 53 percent higher return on equity than the rest, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Three out of four Japanese companies have no female senior executives and a Reuters poll said women account for less than 10 percent of management, underscoring an uphill battle for PM Abe’s “Womenomics” push.7 As mentioned, the government wants to see the proportion of female senior executives at listed firms climb to 10 percent by 2020 and the number in management rise to 30 percent.
The Japanese government is pressuring companies to reform as a new regulation went into effect earlier in 2016 that required firms to disclose how many female employees they have and their plans to support and promote them.
A Reuters Corporate Survey, conducted from August 29 to September 10, 2018, found that only one tenth of Japanese firms said women accounted for 10 percent or more of management. Also, at three-quarters of companies, the figure was less than 10 percent and at 15 percent of firms, there were none.
The movement is called #KuToo, which is a play on the Japanese word “kutsu” for shoes and “kutsuu,” meaning pain.
Women are on the path to reaching critical mass in government
Thousands of Japanese women have joined a social media campaign against dress codes acceptable at work. The campaign also rejects the stereotype that women should wear high heels in the workplace.
The movement is called #KuToo, which is a play on the Japanese word “kutsu” for shoes and “kutsuu,” meaning pain.8 Yumi Ishikawa, a writer and actress, launched the campaign after leaving a message on Twitter, about being forced to wear high heels for a part-time job at a funeral home. She said the requirement is an example of gender discrimination.
She also wrote that wearing high heels causes health problems for women with their feet and in the lower back. “It’s hard to move, you can’t run, and your feet hurt. All because of manners,” she wrote, as reported in a VOA News article.9
Ishikawa submitted the online petition to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on June 3, as this was the start of the screening process for new job seekers recruitment, during which many female applicants wear heels. The petition calls on the government to tell companies to stop rules enforcing women to wear heels.
However, labor minister Takumi Nemoto indicated that he will not support a drive to ban such dress codes. “It’s generally accepted by society that wearing heels is necessary and reasonable in workplaces,” Nemoto said in a Diet committee session. Some supporters of the campaign tweeted that forcing women to wear high heels in earthquake-prone Japan can pose threats to their lives.10
Equal representation in government may help more legislation get completed, and in the business world, gender-balanced leadership teams can help further the progress in a business as different ideas and solutions may come into play.
Leaders should take a stand for equality
Having leadership with an equality mindset is beneficial for a company and is a great leap forward. Bringing inclusivity and diversity to a reality will require business leaders who walk the talk and set the tone for the rest of the organisation.
It’s no secret that parity is good for business: Companies with the highest representation of women on their senior teams reap 34 percent more profits than companies with the lowest female representation, according to Catalyst, a non-profit group that promotes women in the workplace.
Catalyst found that women make up for 9.1 percent of all senior managers at Nissan (NSANF), which was above the 8.3 percent average for Japanese firms with more than 100 employees. Chie Kobayashi, who led Nissan’s diversity development office in 2016, said the company was attractive to her straight out of university because it strips the trend by not using separate career tracks. She also became the first Japanese working mother to be posted overseas for Nissan in 2005.11
Nissan attracts women with its policies, including generous parental leave, flexible working hours, career mentoring and on-site childcare facilities at its global headquarters in Yokohama. Also, major Japanese companies such as Calbee and Shiseido (SSDOF), have also been singled out for their progressive policies on women employees.
However, such firms typically have foreigners in senior management, often crediting Nissan’s Brazilian-born CEO, Carlos Ghosn, for implementing such policies in the company. Therefore, Nissan is just one of the many companies that can help the Japanese government’s target of having women represent 15 percent of senior managers at private companies by 2020.
Having a government and companies that more accurately reflect the population will help push legislation forward to better understand and provide women’s wants and needs, from supporting equal pay to advocating for mandatory parental leave to greater protection against sexual harassment.
References
1 https://www.finchannel.com/business/financial-markets-and-stocks/77095-more-female-and-older-workers-have-boosted-japan-s-labour-market
2,11 https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/16/news/economy/japan-companies-women-careers-nissan/index.html
3 https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/15/news/economy/japan-working-women-report-card/index.html
4, 5 http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/japans-gender-gap/ 6,11https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2019/01/04/6-equality-trends-to-watch-in-2019/#2c7a55744ad4 7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-companies-women/women-in-management-at-japan-firms-still-a-rarity-reuters-poll-idUSKCN1LT3GF
8, 9 https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/japanese-women-stand-against-high-heels/4945361.html
10 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/10/national/social-issues/men-force-feet-high-heels-japans-kutoo-movement-seeks-build-media-attention/#.XRWlJegzbSE
Greece – Suicide or Murder?
By Peter Koenig
Pundits from the left, from the right and from the center cannot stop reporting about Greece’s misery. And rightly so. Because Greece, the vast majority of her people live in deep economic hardship. No hope. Unemployment is officially at 18%, with the real figure closer to 25% or 30%; pensions have been reduced about ten times since Syriza – the Socialist Party – took power in 2015 and loaded the country with debt and austerity. In the domain of public services, everything that has any value has been privatized and sold to foreign corporations, oligarchs, or, naturally – banks. Hospitals, schools, public transportation – even some beaches – have been privatized and made unaffordable for the common people.
While the pundits – always more or less the same – keep lamenting about the Greek conditions in one form or another, none of them dares offer the only solution that could have rescued Greece (and still could) – exiting the euro zone; return to their local currency and start rebuilding Greece with a local economy, built on local currency with local public banking and with a sovereign Greek central bank deciding the monetary policy that best suits Greece, and especially Greece’s recovery program. – Why not? Why do they not talk about this obvious solution? Would they be censured in Greece, because the Greek oligarchy controls the media – as oligarchs do around the (western part of the) globe?
As a consequence, the suicide rate is up, due to foreign imposed (but Greek government accepted) debt and austerity, annihilating hope for terminally ill patients, as well as for pensioners whose pensions do no longer allow them to live a decent life – and especially there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Now, these same pundits add a little air of optimism to their reporting, as the rightwing New Democracy Party (ND Party) won with what they call a ‘landslide’ victory on the 7 July 2019 elections; gathering 39.6% of the votes, against only 31.53 for Syriza, the so-called socialist party, led by outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who represents a tragedy that has allowed Greece to be plunged into this hopeless desolation. The ND won an absolute majority with 158 seats in the 300-member Greek parliament. Therefore, no coalition needed, no concessions required.
The new Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis (51), son of a former PM of the same party, in his victory speech on the evening of 7 July, vowed that Greece will “proudly” enter a post-bailout era of “jobs, security and growth”. He added that “a painful cycle has closed” and that Greece would “proudly raise its head again” on his watch.
We don’t know what this means for the average Greek citizen living a life of despair. What the “left” was unable to do – stopping the foreign imposed (but Greek accepted) bleeding of Greece; the strangulation of their country – will the right be able to reverse that trend? Does the right want to reverse that trend? – Does the ND want to reverse privatization, buy back airports from Germany, water supply from the EU managed “Superfund”, and repurchase the roads from foreign concessionaires, or nationalize hospitals that were sold for a pittance and – especially – get out from austerity to allow importing crucial medication to salvage the sick and dying Greek, those who currently cannot afford treatment of their cancers and other potentially deadly diseases?
That would indeed be a step towards PM Mitsotakis’ promise to end the “painful cycle” of austerity, with import of crucial medication made affordable to those in dire need, with job creation and job security – and much more – with eventually a renewed Greek pride – and Greek sovereignty. The latter would mean – finally – it’s never too late – exit the euro zone. But, that’s an illusion – a pipe-dream. Albeit – it could become a vision.
If the ND is the party of the oligarchs, the Greek oligarchs that is, those Greek who have placed literally billons of euros outside their country in (still) secret bank accounts in Switzerland, France, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg and elsewhere, including the Cayman islands and other Caribbean tax havens – hidden not only from the Greek fiscal authorities, but also impeding that these funds could, crucially, be used for investments at home, for job creation, for creation of added value in Greece – if the ND is the party of the oligarchs, they are unlikely to make the dream of the vast majority of Greek people come true.
Worse even, these Greek oligarch-billionaires call the shots in Greece – not the people, not those who according to Greek tradition and according to the Greek invention, called “democracy” (Delphi, some 2500 years ago) have democratically elected Syriza and have democratically voted against the austerity packages in July 2015. Now, that they are officially in power, they are unlikely to change their greed-driven behavior and act in favor of the Greek people. – Or will they?
Because, if they do, it may eventually also benefit them, the ND Party and its adherents – a Greece that functions like a country, with happy, healthy and content people, is a Greece that retains the worldwide esteem and respect she deserves – and will by association develop an economy that can and will compete and trade around the world, a Greece that is an equal to others, as a sovereign nation. – A dream can become a reality – it just takes visionaries.
Back to today’s reality. The Greek Bailout Referendum of July 5, 2015, was overwhelmingly rejected with 61% ‘no’ against 39% ‘yes’, meaning that almost two thirds of the Greek people would have preferred the consequences of rejecting the bailout, euphemistically called “rescue packages”, namely exiting the euro zone, and possible, but not necessarily, the European Union.
Despite the overwhelming, democratic rejection by the people, the Tsipras government reached an agreement on 13 July 2015 – only 8 days after the vote against the bailout – with the European authorities for a three-year bailout with even harsher austerity conditions than the ones rejected by voters. What went on is anybody’s guess. It looks pretty obvious, though, that “foul play” was the name of the game – which could mean anything from outright and serious (life) threats to blackmail, if Tsipras would not play the game – and this to the detriment of the people.
The democracy fiasco of July 2015 prompted Tsipras to call for snap elections in September 2015, hélas – he won, with a narrow margin and one of the lowest election turnouts ever in Greek postwar history; but, yes, he ‘won’. How much of it was manipulated – by now Cambridge Analytica has become a household word – so he could finish the job for the troika and the German and French banks, is pure speculation.
Today, the ND has an absolute majority in Parliament, plus the ND could ally with a number of smaller and conservative parties to pursue a “people’s dream” line policy. But they may do the opposite. Question: How much more juice is there to be sucked out of broken Greece? Of a Greece that cannot care for her people, for her desperate poor and sick, cannot provide her children with a decent education, of a Greece that belongs into the category of bankruptcy? – Yes, bankruptcy, still today, after the IMF and the gnomes of the EU and the ECB predict a moderate growth rate of some 2%? – But 2% that go to whom? – Not to the people, to be sure, but to the creditors of the €310 billion.
Already in 2011, the British Lancet stated “the Greek Ministry of Health reported that the annual suicide rate has increased by 40%”, presumably since the (imposed) crisis that started in 2008. From this date forward the suicide rate must have skyrocketed, as the overall living conditions worsened exponentially. However, precise figures can no longer be easily found.
The question remains: Is the Greek population dying increasingly from diseases that could be cured, but aren’t due to austerity- and privatization-related lack of medication and health services – and of suicide from desperation? – Is Greece committing suicide by continuing accepting austerity and privatization of vital services, instead of liberating herself from the handcuffs of the euro and very likely the stranglehold of the EU? – Or is Greece the victim of sheer murder inflicted by a greed-driven construct of money institutions and oligarchs, who are beyond morals, beyond ethics and beyond any values of humanity? You be the judge.
About the Author
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
First published by the New Eastern Outlook – NEO