By KEN SAKAKIBARA/ Correspondent
March 3, 2023 at 18:00 JST
Protesters calling for a society without gender discrimination and violence march along a street in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward on March 8, 2017, International Women’s Day. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
WASHINGTON--Japan ranked the lowest among developed countries regrading gender equality under the law, the World Bank said in a report released on March 2.
The country ranked 104th overall of the 190 economies listed.
Japan lags behind in the categories of pay and the workplace. The lack of legislation to punish sexual harassment in the workplace is also one of the reasons for the country’s low ranking.
The annual report measures laws and regulations in eight areas related to women’s economic participation, including the workplace, marriage and assets. The latest 2022 report uses data through October of that year.
It evaluates across eight categories what legal rights women enjoy in 190 countries and regions, with the rights held by men marked with a score of 100.
Japan earned full marks in four categories: mobility, parenthood, assets and pension.
However, marriage stood at a score of 80, entrepreneurship at 75, workplace at 50 and pay at 25.
Of 34 high-income countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Japan was the only one that has no legislation on sexual harassment in the workplace.
Most of the countries have criminal penalties or civil remedies for sexual harassment, the World Bank said.
Overall, Japan scored 78.8 out of 100, calculated based on an assessment of the eight categories.
The average score for the OECD high-income countries was 95.3. Japan was the only developed nation with a score below 80.
Canada and 13 European countries, including Spain, scored 100, indicating that men and women enjoy equal legal rights there.
The global average score was 77.1, with the growth rate from the previous year falling to a 20-year low.
At the current pace, in many countries a woman entering the workforce today will have retired before she gained the same legal rights as men, the World Bank notes.
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