THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 27, 2023 at 16:37 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at a meeting to promote gender equality held in the prime minister’s office on April 27. (Koichi Ueda)
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed ministers and experts at a meeting promoting gender equality to prepare a plan for having women in at least 30 percent of executive positions at companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market by 2030.
“Securing diversity through promoting women’s empowerment, and enabling innovation as a result, is crucial to achieving new capitalism and an inclusive society,” Kishida said at the April 27 meeting.
Kishida plans to include the target in the 2023 "honebuto no hoshin" (big-boned policies) for women, which is this year’s version of the government’s policy to empower women and promote gender equality that the government will soon finalize.
Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation), Japan’s largest business lobby, has set the same goal of having women hold at least 30 percent of the top managerial positions by 2030.
The government will encourage the promotion of women within companies by including in the 2023 policy plans detailed measures such as a short-term numerical target and an action plan, Kishida said.
Women held only 9 percent of executive positions at 3,795 listed companies in fiscal 2021, according to Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd.
That means only 3,575 board directors, corporate auditors, or executive officers were women at these companies in fiscal 2021.
At the meeting, Kishida presented three pillars to help promote gender equality: having companies accelerate their promotion of women, such as increasing the percentage of women among their executive officers; increasing women's incomes through digital skills training or other means; and ending violence to women to allow them to live safely.
He then instructed ministers concerned who attended the meeting, including Masanobu Ogura, the minister in charge of women's empowerment, to prepare detailed policies for compiling the 2023 honebuto no hoshin for women.
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