About 30% of recent graduates in Japan who have worked as interns have experienced sexual harassment during their internships, according to a Labor Ministry survey.
The share of such respondents was 30.1%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous survey in fiscal year 2020. Meanwhile, only 0.7% of companies surveyed said they had been consulted about sexual harassment by students who were looking for a job or by others.
The research results were presented on Friday during a panel meeting of the ministry. Experts attending the meeting pointed out a “gap in awareness” between students and companies. The ministry plans to accelerate efforts to combat such sexual harassment.
In the survey, the most common form of sexual harassment of job seekers was “sexual jokes and teasing,” followed by “persistent invitations to dinner and dates.”
The research also found that 26.1% of women who took maternity or parental leave in the past five years experienced ‘maternity harassment’, and 24% of men who took parental leave experienced was met with ‘paternity harassment’.
The ministry also released the results of a survey on women’s participation and advancement. Among companies with 100 to 299 employees, which are required to draw up plans to promote female labor force participation, the share of companies with such plans almost doubled compared to the previous survey in 2018 to 76.9%.
Among companies with 30 to 99 employees, which are obliged to make efforts to draw up such plans, this share was 15.2%.
