Japan plans to require more firms to disclose gender pay gap data

I wonder whether there are any measures to prevent companies from submitting falsified or manipulated data, a deception recently discovered in Japan’s automotive and engine-production industries?

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https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-other-japan-automakers-under-fire-vehicle-certification-issues-2024-06-03/

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/04/1b35909379dd-japans-ihi-rigged-data-for-over-4000-engines-at-least-since-2003.html

Japan plans to require more firms to disclose gender pay gap data

Japan Inc will always complain for difficulty in getting new candidate for employee but when being asked their part, such increasing wage, making better working environment and even simple to just disclose they gender pay gap which cost nothing on their side. They'll just refuse.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/06/10/business/recruitment-japan-tactics/

They still overwork and under pay as a general practice. Wage theft is still rampant in Japan even tho there are laws against most of these practices.

Women still have to struggle with this barrier in many countries, US included. If anything can be done, I'm all for it. Some of the best minds are female so let them tap into the upper echelon fairly and squarely. My daughter graduated with her bachelor's at 18. I think she could handle the job.

The wage gap is a big nothing burger.

According to 2023 data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, full-time male workers in Japan earned a monthly average of 350,900 yen, whereas women received 262,600 yen, representing 74.8 percent of men's earnings.

If you average all men's salaries and all women's salaries, sure. But how about take into consideration how long they've been working and their job duties? Do that and the wage gap will shrink to almost nothing.

The wage disparity between the sexes in Japan is believed to be due to fewer women in senior positions and men tending to work longer hours than women.

Yes, we tend to pay managers and executives more. And same goes for people who work more. How is this even a debate?

If you want to debate something, debate WHY there are fewer women in senior positions.

I work with the president of a major Japanese corporation. We have spoken specifically about the wage gap. He insists that it simply does not exist. Logic and reason would suggest he is correct.

If they compare men and women with the same job titles, experience, education and hours worked, then the entire premise behind this absurd plan will fall apart.

The article clearly lists "men tending to work longer hours than women" as one of the causes of the gender pay gap in Japan. Part of the solution is to require woman to work longer hours to be able to earn more.

Saying a gender pay gap doesn't exist implies that women earn less because they are less capable/work less/don't want careers. Anyone can interpret that information as they like.

The wage disparity between the sexes in Japan is believed to be due to fewer women in senior positions and men tending to work longer hours than women.

Yeah... and the fact that women tend to choose lower-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being estheticians, nailists, make-up artists, store clerks, nurses, and so on and so on, whereas men will choose higher-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being a doctor, lawyer, programmer, IT consultant, and so on. Very rarely will you have cutesy Japanese girls saying they want to be programmers or lawyers.

Yeah... and the fact that women tend to choose lower-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being estheticians, nailists, make-up artists, store clerks, nurses, and so on and so on, whereas men will choose higher-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being a doctor, lawyer, programmer, IT consultant, and so on.

Sounds like traditionally male roles have been overvalued, and salaries should be lowered accordingly.

If you want to work in a completely wage gap free environment, join the military.

All base wages are the same by rank and years of service.

if you want to call the bonuses such as spec ops, EOD, danger pay, etc… roles that men usually fill a “wage gap,” then that is your political prerogative.

"full-time male workers in Japan earned a monthly average of 350,900 yen, whereas women received 262,600 yen, representing 74.8 percent of men's earnings."

Full time worker is too broad a catagory for comparison

"Sounds like traditionally male roles have been overvalued, and salaries should be lowered accordingly."

So doctors should make the same as Belc cashiers? Or is "doctor" overvalued?

and men tending to work longer hours than women.

being in attendance and not accomplishing anything, isn't work.

they should make a chart of how much actual work is done by male management, first. and how much of it is just sitting around, pretending to check the Internet for anything.

The companies should feel pressure from the government for equal pay.

Another wage gap is between full-time and contract workers. In many cases the contract worker has the same workload, works the same amount of hours, but gets paid significantly less. And usually no bonuses.

"they should make a chart of how much actual work is done by male management, first. and how much of it is just sitting around, pretending to check the Internet for anything."

Be sure to do the same for female employees in the exact same positions as their male counterparts. In fact, do this for the wage disparity throughout all metrics, including how many hours one works, the experience of the individual, his/her skills and what they actually produce in the time put in. For teachers, you could factor in students' test results. By the way female teachers make the same as male teachers. For ALTs you could factor in sharing the class with another teacher who has to translate the more complex ideas the ALT is incapable of doing. For those returning to the workplace one could factor in the time cost of re-training that individual etc.

In Norway all tax returns are public. Anyone can see anybody else's tax returns. That was instituted so workers have knowledge of what their peers are paid for the same kind of work with the idea being to give workers some leverage in wage negotiations. If women are paid less for the same job than men it will be painfully apparent in the data in Norway's "Tax List".

Yeah... and the fact that women tend to choose lower-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being estheticians, nailists, make-up artists, store clerks, nurses, and so on and so on, whereas men will choose higher-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being a doctor, lawyer, programmer, IT consultant, and so on. Very rarely will you have cutesy Japanese girls saying they want to be programmers or lawyers.

Your ideas are out of date. My direct supervisor is a woman with degrees in Chemistry and over a dozen patents to her name. My wife is an electrical engineer who is an animal in a 6DOF simulation lab. My TPO lead is a woman with an engineering degree who leads a team of several dozen engineers developing missiles. But even at that level women are not paid as much as men in the same position.

"Your ideas are out of date. My direct supervisor is a woman with degrees in Chemistry and over a dozen patents to her name. My wife is an electrical engineer who is an animal in a 6DOF simulation lab. My TPO lead is a woman with an engineering degree who leads a team of several dozen engineers developing missiles."

This is all anecdotal. Doing a demographic survey of each of these fields in university will reveal what women's choices trend towards.

When we say wage gap how to we define that.Is that over a life time? Or is that per hour? Weekly or monthly? I’ve yet to see a job that offers women and men a different hourly rate. Over a lifetime women may lose out if they take time out to raise a family, and that’s considerable if they have 3 kids.but to make things even, are we 1) going to ask men to earn less? 2) pay women to have kids to compensate for lose in earnings? or 3) pay men who have a family more in order to support a family? I’ve met doctors, nurses, lawyers, pilots male and female and they earn the same on a monthly basis. Should we pay women more who have say menstrual problems every month in order to balance everything?

We also ask women to retire earlier than men, even though they live longer. Is this impacting their lifetimes earnings? Should women now be asked to work longer than men to compensate for the life expectancy disparity? That would improveShould we pay women more, to take work leave or ask men to take a wage cut? Should we force men to take time off work to raise kids which will impact their careers as opposed to a single male who doesn’t have kids/ family. I suppose nature is part of this and maybe as a society we are trying to nurture something, that in certain cases in unattainable. The men work more and longer to get the overtime to hand over their paychecks to their family. So who are these men who work longer?

Sounds like traditionally male roles have been overvalued, and salaries should be lowered accordingly.

I refuse to believe this is a serious take by someone normally as nuanced as you, dude. But sometimes we do a little trolling, I guess.

Yeah... and the fact that women tend to choose lower-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being estheticians, nailists, make-up artists, store clerks, nurses, and so on and so on, whereas men will choose higher-paying professions out of their OWN FREE WILL such as being a doctor, lawyer, programmer, IT consultant, and so on. Very rarely will you have cutesy Japanese girls saying they want to be programmers or lawyers.

Not only that, a majority of Japanese women say explicitly that they don't want longer hours, more responsibility, or more dangerous/competitive jobs. This is also a major factor that hurts women in the workplace because of the resulting stigma that a woman isn't as willing as a man to self sacrifice for the workplace, when at least a minority of women would be more than happy.

However, I think that Kindergarten teachers, nursing home employees and the like should not only get a massive raise across the board\ but also public servant status for the service they offer to the community and, by extension, to the entire nation.

Take care, that of course includes closing the gender gap by shrinking the wages for whichever gender currently has the higher ones.

OLs at my company get paid ¥180,000 per month gross. It’s disgusting.

"OLs at my company get paid ¥180,000 per month gross. It’s disgusting."

What exactly is an OL...I know it stands for "office lady", but does every woman at your office have the same salary? If so, how would you know? Salaries are not something Japanese tend to discuss with co-workers. What is the job that pays only ¥180,000 per month? What are the hours...8am to noon? Who would take that job? Someone who is illiterate or has no skills whatsoever? If I were you I'd leave that company, "David". If I were a woman I never would have accepted the job in the first place.

Funny the wage gap exist because the old salary men seem to think they don't exist, perhaps because they work their entire lives give their salary to their wives where they control the purse strings and then give them a monthly stipend. Perhaps that is why they say it doesn't exist.