Law on promotion of women's advancement in workplace is set to expire in March 2026
Japan is planning to mandate all unlisted companies with 101 or more employees to disclose their ratios of women in management positions, according to reports.
The Labour Ministry proposed the policy at a subcommittee of the Labour Policy Council, which was agreed upon by labour and management representatives, The Asahi Shimbun reported.
The representatives agreed on the condition that the ministry inform the organisations to be affected on how the policy will benefit their management, such as by addressing issues with labour shortages.
The proposal seeks to address the low ratio of female managers compared with other countries, which experts pointed out is contributing to wage disparities between men and women in Japan.
Currently, only listed companies are required to disclose their gender ratio in management positions through their annual securities reports.
According to The Asahi Shimbun's report, the ministry is expected to submit the proposal to expand this mandate at a regular Diet session in 2025.
It comes as the law on the promotion of women's advancement in the workplace is set to expire in March 2026, with an extension for another decade needing to be requested at the Diet session.
Meanwhile, the subcommittee of the Labour Policy Council also agreed on Tuesday to expand the range of companies that will be required to reveal the wage disparities between male and female staff, according to the report.
The expansion will see the mandate include companies with 101 or more employees, a lower threshold compared to the previous policy that only covered firms with 301 or more staff.
The mandate was first introduced in 2022, covering roughly 18,000 companies in Japan at that time, The Asahi Shimbun reported.
While firms with fewer than 300 employees were not mandated to disclose their gender wage gaps, they were given the option to do so.
