Women lead just 13 of Japan’s top firms

Just 13 chief executives at Japan’s top companies are female, recent research has found.
A Kyodo news agency survey of financial statements by 1,643 firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange found that only 0.8% of chief executives were women. Japan Research Institute manager Ryusuke Ishii blamed the lack of progress partly on the tendency to hire top officers from outside businesses, rather than promote internally.
The Japanese government has a target for top-listed firms to raise the proportion of female executives to 30% or more by 2030. Kyodo found that the country had 3,052 female executives in 2023, making up 16.2% of the total – up from 1,502 in 2019.
In 2023, OECD Statistics’ article The long rose to gender parity in senior leadership positions revealed that just 9.5% of senior leadership roles at multinational companies in Japan were held by women.
The then prime minister Fumio Kishida said that more diversity in leadership roles would boost the country’s economy, adding: “Securing diversity through promoting women’s empowerment, and enabling innovation as a result, is crucial to achieving new capitalism and an inclusive society.”