The business community has heightened calls for Japan to allow married couples to choose separate surnames, a reflection of the increasing number of women in management and executive posts.

Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) have criticized the mandatory single-surname system for “hindering business processes.”

On March 8, Keiko Tashiro, a vice chair of Keizai Doyukai who is also a deputy president of Daiwa Securities Group Inc., handed a request to the Justice Ministry for the introduction of a surname selection mechanism.

“Many employees find the current system very inconvenient and costly,” Tashiro told the ministry. “We desperately would like you to make a new framework a reality.”

Receiving the plea, Hiroaki Kadoyama, state minister of justice, said he will thoroughly examine the content of the request and share it with Justice Minister Ryuji Koizumi.

The same day, Teiko Kudo, a senior managing executive officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. who heads the planning unit of Keidanren’s diversity promotion committee, asked the Foreign Ministry to introduce an optional two-surname system.

The campaign targeting the ministries was initiated by a voluntary group of prominent business figures. Yoshihisa Aono, president of information technology provider Cybozu Inc., is a co-leader of the group.

A petition with 1,000 signatures of supportive corporate executives was also submitted.

The powerful business lobbies started aggressively pushing for a dual-surname system earlier this year.

For the first time, Keidanren in January told the government to institute a two-surname framework at a meeting with Ayuko Kato, state minister for policies related to women’s empowerment.

Keidanren Chairman Masakazu Tokura, who is also chair of Sumitomo Chemical Co., in February became the first leader of the business lobby to publicly push for a dual-surname system.

“I sincerely hope the mechanism will be advanced as the most urgent problem to tackle right now,” Tokura said.
Takeshi Niinami, chairman of Keizai Doyukai, agreed.

“Catering to diversity will mark a first step as an industrialized country,” he told a recent news conference. “The framework should definitely be embraced.”

The selective surname system was initially proposed in 1996 by the government’s Legislative Council in a potential amendment to the Civil Code.

But politicians from the Liberal Democratic Party opposed the suggestion, insisting a dual surname system can “destroy a sense of unity among family members.”

No legal revisions have been made over the issue even after 28 years. The government has instead proceeded with an initiative to enable citizens to use their maiden names on driver’s licenses and elsewhere.

Previously, Keidanren was content with the move.

When the Supreme Court in 2015 ruled that the one-surname rule for married couples was “constitutional,” then Keidanren Chairman Sadayuki Sakakibara told a news conference there was no need to change the system.

“Neither corporations nor individuals are seemingly troubled by any inconvenience” linked to the problem, he argued at the time.

But the broadened use of maiden names has been described as insufficient.

And the business groups have campaigned for legal changes as more female employees have risen to management and executive positions. Although these women may continue using their maiden names at work, their legal surnames are changed after marriage under the tradition.

Japan is the only nation that legally requires married couples to use the same family name.

Naomi Motojima, a managing executive officer from Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co., faced an unexpected problem over her surname when she arrived in the United States in early February.

She was among 13 female executives from Keidanren member companies who were touring more than 10 destinations, including the United Nations and the White House, with the aim of learning about diversity-relevant policies.

Motojima was stopped by security guards at the building entrances every time because she referred to herself as Motojima, but her passport showed her officially registered name of Yoshitani.

She was let in after explaining that she was part of a formal mission and that her surname had been changed following marriage.

“They might not have let me through if I was visiting alone,” she recalled. “If the same thing happened before important meetings, my company could be damaged. I noticed the business risk involving the surname issue for the first time then.”

At a Keizai Doyukai workshop last December, Masumi Abe, a senior managing director at homebuilder Aida Sekkei Co. in Saitama, explained her problems with the one-surname rule.

She refers to herself as Abe when conducting business but uses her registered name in mandatory securities reports.

“I fear that my business partners may not be able to identify me,” Abe said.

Abe also must use her official name of Okada for her golf club membership, so she has trouble at the reception counter each time she plays a round.

Some players are perplexed to find an unknown name in their group.

“I golf several times a week, so this difficulty is really stressful,” she said. “This is thorny because golfing constitutes an important part of work.”

Keidanren plans to work out a proposal for a dual-surname framework in the first half of the fiscal year that starts in April. It also intends to continue pressing the government.