S e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 4 		

1Toward Eliminating the Wage Gap between Men and Women
Looking at the rankings of the Global Gender GapIndex (a compounded index that numerically expresses the extent of achieving equality between menand women in the four fields politics, economics, education, and health) released by the World Economic
Forum on June 12, Japan ranked 118th out of 146 countries (125th last year) and remains in the lowest level
worldwide. By field, Japan was around the averagelevel for health (58th) and education (72nd), but Japan’srankings for politics (113th) and economics (120th)
greatly pulled down its overall ranking. In economics,
the weakest area was the percentage of women in
managerial positions (130th), and the wage gap formen and women employed for similar work (83rd) was
also below average.
So, we set out to confirm the status of the elimination of the wage gap between men and women in
Japan. First, looking at the OECD statistics, in 2022 thegender wage gap for full-time workers (median) inJapan was 21.3%, which is a large improvement fromthe 2005 level of 32.8% (see Figure). While this is a stepin the right direction, it still greatly exceeds the average among OECD member countries (11.6%). It remains
at an inferior level, and further efforts are needed.
Next, to confirm the present conditions, looking at
the transition of the results of the Basic Survey on
Wage Structure released by the Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare each year, as of the most recent
statistics for 2023, the monthly wages of ordinary
workers (regular employees excluding part-time workers) were ¥350,900 for men and ¥262,600 for women,with women’s wages at 74.8% of men’s wages (seeTable). Last year, when there was strong momentum
for wage increases, men’s wages rose by 2.6% versus
the previous year while the wage increase rate forwomen was limited to 1.4%, and consequently the gap

expanded by 0.9 percentage points compared with
2022. Realizing wage increases while also rectifying
the wage gap between men and women is a difficult
challenge, and it is important to note that there is achance of wage hikes creating distortions.
Looking by size of enterprise, at large enterprises(with 1,000 or more regular employees), wages for men
were virtually flat (up 0.0% year-on-year) while wages
for women declined by 1.3% (see Table) and wages declined by 0.7% overall. Just looking at these figures, it
is hard to claim that wage increases advanced. Meanwhile, at medium enterprises (100–999 employees) andsmall enterprises (10–99 employees), while wages did
increase for both men and women, the fact that thewage increase rate for men surpassed that for women
was the same at all sizes of enterprises.
One factor that can be noted for the wage gap between men and women is that the percentage ofwomen in managerial positions (department managers
and section chiefs) remains at just 12.6%, and thelarger the enterprise, the smaller the percentage. That
women account for merely 9.8% of high-ranking department managers is also a problem. Given the gender gap in the percentage of managerial positions, if
manager-class employees who receive high compensation benefit greatly from wage hikes, this acts to further expand the gender gap.
The point that requires much attention from now
on is how the large wage hikes this year, which aregreater than those last year, will impact the wage gap
between men and women. Reducing the wage gap isalso very important from the perspective of the efficient use of human resources, and government recognition of this problem is increasing. In fact, centered on
the Project Team for the Promotion of Women’s Active

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September 2024

Engagement in Professional Life, which was launchedthis April, measures are being implemented to rectify
the gap in five industries with large wage gaps and tostrengthen obligations to disclose the percentages ofwomen in managerial positions.
The disproportionately heavy burden on womenfrom the familial division of labor probably is one fundamental factor which causes the wage gap between
men and women. The number of households where
both men and women work (12.06 million households)
has now reached three times the number with full-timehousewives (4.04 million households), which is a greatchange from the 1990s when these were roughly equal.
If women’s excessive burden of housework and childraising is not addressed, it would greatly limit not only
the employment of wives in households where bothmen and women work, which have become the majority, but also that of full-time housewives, and the gap
between men and women in the workplace will not diminish. It is also important for companies to fundamentally revise their employment structure which relies excessively on men, and not just leave it up to families to resolve this issue.

Figure: International Comparison of the Gender Wage Gap(%)
40
South Korea
3530

Japan25US
20Eurozone

1510

Average for OECD member countries
2005

10152022

Note: Gap between median incomes of men and womendivided by men’s median income
Source: OECD

Table: Transition of Indices Related to the Gender Wage Gap in Japan
2021

2223y/yMen’s wages ([1], ¥1,000)

337.2

342.0

350.9

2.6%

Women’s wages ([2], ¥1,000)

253.6

258.9

262.6

Wage gap ([2]÷[1], %)

75.2

75.7

74.8

Men’s wages (¥1,000)

375.9

386.6

386.7

0.0%

Women’s wages (¥1,000)

271.0

278.2

274.6

▲1.3%

Wage gap (%)

72.1

72.0

71.0

▲1.0

Men’s wages (¥1,000)

328.0

331.2

341.6

3.1%

252.5

257.0262.5

2.1%

Wage gap (%)

77.0

77.6

76.8

Men’s wages (¥1,000)

303.6

308.1

319.8

3.8%

Women’s wages (¥1,000)

235.0

241.3

248.4

2.9%

Wage gap (%)

77.4

78.3

77.7

Large enterprises

Medium enterprises Women’s wages (¥1,000)

Small enterprises

Source: Basic Survey on Wage Structure by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

1.4%
▲0.9

▲0.8

▲0.6