Asia's shameful gender discrimination

Asia's shameful gender discrimination

1)

The annual release of the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report is always a moment of great shame for Asia's leading economies.

The relative gaps between Asian women and men on measures of health, education, economy, and politics are enormous and not improving sufficiently.

Discrimination against women, to go by the report's findings, seems endemic to most Asian societies.

2)

As usual, Nordic countries such as Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden ranked in the Global Gender Gap Index 2020 rankings, which surveyed 153 countries.

Also in the top 10 were Nicaragua, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Rwanda, and Germany. Australia and the US were among the laggards, ranking 44 and 53, respectively.

3)

But Japan, the first mover in Asia's postwar economic renaissance, is struggling in 121st place.

It is way out of sync with Japan's status as an advanced country with a GDP per capita in the world's top 30 countries.

Korea is slightly ahead at 108th. Indonesia ranks 85th, China 106th, and India 112th.

Without offering equal opportunity to half of Asia's talent, the promise of an Asian Century will never be realized.

4)

At the level of political messaging, however, Japan is a country that seems to be taking the issue seriously.

The performance of Japanese girls was equivalent to boys in a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that examined 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science knowledge.

5)

Japan also needs to act because the country's working-age population has been declining since 1998.

As a result, Japan now faces labor shortages, with the size of the workforce projected to decrease by a quarter by 2050.

Abe once said, "Before accepting immigrants or refugees, we need to have more activities by women and elderly people, and we must raise our birth rate."

6)

It has the third-highest gender wage gap among the advanced OECD countries - only ahead of Estonia and South Korea.

In addition, only 13% of Japanese women hold management positions, the second-lowest of the OECD, after South Korea.

In 2017, women occupied only 5% of the seats on the boards of listed companies.

And women are also underrepresented in the political arena, accounting for only 10% of the members of the lower house of the Diet (parliament).

7)

The Japanese government's initiatives to facilitate women's participation in the economy many things.

It includes targets for the participation and advancement of women in the workforce, increasing daycare and after-school care, recruiting and promoting women in government, and reviewing the tax and social security system.

It has helped push the proportion of women with a job from 60.7% in 2012 to 69.6% in 2018.

But a large share remains in "non-regular jobs," primarily part-time positions.

8)

Japan's gender gap is by far the largest among all advanced economies. Japan's ranking in the Global Gender Gap Index fell 11 positions from 2018, driven by a widening political gender gap.

At this moment, there is only one woman in Abe's 18-member cabinet. If Abe was profound, at the very least, he needed to put more women into leadership positions.

9)

Japanese corporations must adopt a family-friendly work culture and more efficient work practices.

Japanese women can't combine work and family life when corporate life comprises long working hours, compulsory overtime, evening socializing with colleagues, and transfers to offices far from home.

10)

Japan's poor work-life balance also means that men have little to contribute to family life, which would support women who wish to work and have a family.

In Japan, women devote nearly four hours a day to housework and childcare, compared to less than one hour for men.

The government is implementing "work-style" reforms to limit overtime and mandate equal pay for"equal work," but it is unclear how much things will change.

11)

Japan's GDP could be lifted by some 15% if women's labor force participation rate converged to that of men and if women's average monthly hours worked were to rise to the OECD average.

But better gender equality for Japanese women is not just a question of economics.

It could also be a vehicle for improving human well-being in this country, where citizens are reportedly less satisfied with their lives than the OECD average.