‘Work like a man’ mantra stalls Japan’s drive to boost workforce

TOKYO — Japan’s Defence Minister is Ms Tomomi Inada. The Governor of Tokyo is Ms Yuriko Koike, herself the Defence Minister in 2007. And the leader of Japan’s opposition Democratic Party is Ms Renho Murata, who prefers to be known mononymously as Ms Renho.

Women are popping up in powerful public roles in Japan, in the wake of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s much-ballyhooed “womenomics” drive to boost Japan’s ageing workforce and put more women in leadership positions. But these high-level examples are usually more the exception than the norm, and not much has changed for the majority of Japanese women, say experts interviewed by TODAY.

“If you want a career, you have to work like a man,” said Ms Shinobu Shimamura, associate director of recruitment consultancy Michael Page Japan.

Despite a slew of regulations introduced by Mr Abe since 2013 to move women up the corporate ladder, the country’s culture of long working hours, coupled with a dearth of support for childcare, continues to put women at a disadvantage when it comes to promotions, even if their participation rate in the workforce has increased steadily.

Ms Renho, the popular opposition leader, told the Financial Times this month that changing laws on working hours or maternity leave is easier than changing mindsets.

Indeed, a White Paper published earlier this month by the Japanese government found that a fifth of surveyed companies reported full-time staff working dangerously long hours. Nearly 11 per cent of companies surveyed said they had full-time staff working at least 80 hours of overtime a month, and almost 12 per cent of companies surveyed said they had staff working more than 100 hours of overtime a month, the Financial Times reported.

About 21 per cent of Japanese work an average of at least 49 hours or more a week, more than the 12.5 per cent and 16 per cent reported in Britain or the United States. As a result, women who remain the primary caregiver of children in a family find themselves leaving the workforce, or taking up part-time or contract positions — positions that make it hard for them to rise through the ranks.

“In Japan, you have to stay longer in the office than your boss,” said Ms Shimamura. “Colleagues will want to see you stay even longer, or else they won’t see you as a potential leader.”

Ms Akane Koga, 40, thought she could resume her work as an executive at a trading company after her maternity leave, but found it hard to cope despite having worked there for four years.

“It was normal for most workers to work overtime. My boss and co-worker weren’t happy when I left the office at 5pm,” she said. “It was quite a terrible experience. I gave up (after one year) and left the company.”

Ms Hanako (not her real name), 32, who works in sales, recounted hearing a businessman once say how he “could not understand why women are working in this industry”.

The remark was reflective of “most Japanese businessmen’s feelings,” she said, adding that women have an “invisible wall to overcome”, and tend to be evaluated more poorly for doing the same tasks as their male counterparts.

‘Creating a society in which women shine’

In 2013, Mr Abe, with an eye on Japan’s declining workforce, declared an ambitious goal of having women occupying 30 per cent of management positions in Japan by 2020, up from 11 per cent at the time. To do this, he pledged to establish 400,000 new nursery school places by 2018 — the number of children on waiting lists at the time.

The ratio of replacement pay during parental leave for both men and women was increased from 50 per cent to about 67 per cent for the first six months, and the entitlement was extended to non-regular workers.

A new law was also put forward, requiring any employer with more than 300 staff to disclose gender diversity targets, accompanied by action plans. It took effect in April.

Since then, the workforce participation rate of women inched up from 65 per cent in 2013 to 66.7 per cent last year, according to OECD data. This is above the OECD countries’ average of 63 per cent, but it trails that of Germany (73.1 per cent) and Australia (71.2 per cent).

Recognising it might have overreached, Japan last year lowered targets for women in section-chief positions in the national government bureaucracy from 30 per cent to 7 per cent, and to 15 per cent for companies, reported The Japan Times. As of last year, the figure for the private sector stood at 9.2 per cent, and just 3.5 per cent in government agencies.

Professor Setsuya Fukuda, senior researcher at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Japan (IPSS), called the strides made by Ms Renho and Ms Koike “symbolic phenomena”. While it reflects changing expectations for women, Japan’s social systems, from social security, healthcare, local governance, and labour relations, remain largely unchanged.

“How to re-design Japan’s social systems to get adjusted for population decline and ageing should be the base of all kinds of discussions in the 21st century Japan,” he added.

Professor Machiko Osawa, director of the Research Institute for Women and Careers at Japan Women’s University, noted how employers for example, often hire women in part-time positions, to avoid having to pay social security.

Besides the long working hours, a male-dominated corporate culture further disadvantages women, where long hours of drinking with the boss are expected of salarymen. “Some superiors still don’t understand how to treat women. Men will get better opportunities than women, in the form of informal networks that exclude women,” Prof Osawa said.

Ms Hanako is encouraged by the government’s drive, noting that for one, it has become less embarrassing for men to take child care leave. But in her company, there are still no women executives, she said, summing up the prevailing attitude as “a guy who can work longer is better than the woman who cannot work till midnight”.

Prof Osawa noted that the women who have risen in politics have charted very different paths from most women, having been media stars before they entered politics. The half-Taiwanese half-Japanese Ms Renho was a model and television host before she was elected into the House of Councillors in 2004, while Ms Koike was a television news anchor before she was elected into the House of Councillors in 1992.

Professor Naoko Kumada, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, said Mr Abe’s push to promote women was driven by economics, rather than a “serious reflection on the necessity to improve women’s cultural and social status”.

“We may have more female political leaders now, but it is not easy to change the cultural and social status of women in all spheres of Japanese society,” she said. “There is strong resistance, from conservative groups in Japan who are concerned about the destruction of traditional family system, against gender equality based on gender-free education.”

Addressing the imbalance

Nonetheless, more young Japanese adults are leaning towards a “dual-earner” household structure to be “realistic”, studies conducted by the IPSS every five years show, said Prof Fukuda.

“Improving women’s economic roles is likely to change gender role arrangements within the household as well as women’s social and political status,” he said, adding that policies should not hamper such trends.

Prof Osawa concurred, noting that the most important professional stumbling blocks for women are structural, such as the scarcity of childcare. The number of children on waiting lists for day care has been slashed to 23,167 as of April last year, but the figure was in fact 8 per cent higher than in 2014, sparking some concern.

Ms Asuka Hori, who works in the logistics industry and has one child, currently pays over US$1,000 a month for childcare. “Public childcare space is much cheaper, but all space around my house or office is full,” said Ms Hori, who is in her thirties.

Ms Sayaka Miura, a 41-year-old Japanese language teacher, said she found a daycare centre for her 1 1/2 year-old daughter after searching around for some months.

“I was so lucky because there are still many women who are still searching for daycare centres.”

Ms Hanako suggested that the government make the cost of hiring a domestic helper less expensive — like in Singapore.

Ms Shimamura pointed to the overtime culture as a key challenge to tackle. “I have come across people who have left Japan, because they no longer want to work here. We need to be more results driven,” she said.