Japanese Women in Management: Getting Closer to ‘Realities’ in Japan

Women managers are seldom seen in Japan. Female legislators, senior officials and managers are only 9 per cent of the total. It is also one of the main factors that have created the significant gender wage gap; female workers earned just 66.5 per cent of male worker earnings in 2002. This contribution explores reasons for the persistent phenomenon of very few female managers in the Japanese workplace despite economic and political factors favourable for ‘empowering’ women. To what extent is this situation explained by the cliché that women lack the ‘will’ to be promoted? The common explanation is that women ‘choose’ not to be promoted or leave their jobs because of their ‘attitude’ to marriage, birth and family responsibilities. Is that all? A recent study on work organization revealed the mechanism of constructing female private ‘attitudes’ and ‘choice’ within the organization. Although this new approach seems promising, this contribution argues that its local-oriented approach should be combined with macro analysis, especially focusing on the institutionalized practices beyond each workplace.