Two years after Japan made it mandatory for companies to disclose their gender pay gap, little progress has been made on equality, with the biggest disparities seen among the highest-paying companies.
Of Japan’s 100 largest companies by market capitalization, 70 had released data for analysis by Bloomberg over the past two years as of Aug. 15. Only one company saw an improvement of more than 5 percentage points in its gender pay gap.
The government introduced the requirement to disclose wage gaps in 2022, in a bid to support women’s economic empowerment and attract more women to the workforce as the population shrinks. The data suggests that disclosure alone is not enough to change the status quo, and the focus is shifting to other efforts to improve the situation.
