Female Managers in Japan: How to Set the Goal of Increasing Women in Leadership Roles

Abstract

How to increase the number of female manager is still one of the contemporary issues in Japan. In comparison with other developed countries, Japan is far below others in terms of the level of employing women as management staffs. This paper was undertaken to shed light on the factors hindering the promotion of female manager in Japan workforce. It was also intended to discover more relevant improvement area that Japan government can consider to put more efforts in order to enhance the Japanese women for working as senior positions. The perspective of employee and employer are adopted for discussing and illustrating important insights which are considered able to explain the current phenomenon in Japan. On the other hand, a question from the survey of human resources management in Japanese companies in China (JCCs) which was conducted previously is used to further test if the factors of industry, location, company size, and years of business have any influence on the degree of employing women in management position of Japanese companies in China. According to the result by analyzing 180 valid response, 113 from Mainland China and 67 from Hong Kong, companies in servicing industries are likely to have higher percentage of female manager than those in manufacturing industries. A positive association existed between the industrial factor and percentage of female managers in JCCs.