Illustration by Louise Rouse
As a highly qualified professional, Nobuko Suzuki (Ed note: name changed at subject’s request) spent many years working in Tokyo’s publishing industry. However, once she left her job to raise three daughters, Suzuki was unable to return to her previous career field. The only position that the university-educated Suzuki could find when she wanted to return to full-time work was a job in a candy factory. Had Suzuki lived in the Unites States, Canada or Europe, she might have used her educational background and experience to find a more senior position. But in Japan, she is yet another case of a highly qualified woman “off-ramping” to a life outside the working world.
Suzuki’s case is not unique. In fact, it’s the norm in Japan. A new study by the New York-based Center for Work-Life Policy (CWLP) found that a majority of highly qualified, university-educated women in Japan “off-ramp” early on and never find “on-ramps” to resume their careers.
The study, entitled: “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Japan: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success” was compiled through focus groups and oneon-one interviews with more than 1,500 respondents. And the results shed new light on some traditionally held beliefs about working women in Japan.
“This study definitely challenges conventional wisdom,” says Laura Sherbin, co-author of the report. “(The study) goes to show how deeply engrained traditional views have the power to limit the career opportunities for educated Japanese women.”
While conventional wisdom suggests that Japanese women are more “family-oriented” than their Western counterparts and are more likely to quit their jobs to raise children, the “Off-Ramps” study proves otherwise: a vast majority of Japanese women don’t choose children over their careers but are forced out by workplace pressures.
“Only 32 percent of Japanese women cite childcare as an issue in their decision to quit,” says Sherbin. “It’s also worth noting that 43 percent of college-educated Japanese women over 40 don’t even have children, so childcare is not an issue for nearly half of the women surveyed.”
Among the pressures cited in the survey were the rigid workdays, a lack of career advancement opportunities and gender bias found in Japanese companies. These workplace pressures also drive many highly qualified Japanese women to jobs with US or European companies, which they feel are more sensitive to their needs than Japanese firms. That is bad news for a country facing a growing
demographic crisis.
AN EXODUS OF TALENT
Female labor participation in prefectures around Japan (%)
“This is an astonishing figure,” says Sherbin. “We were very surprised to find that childcare and eldercare are not the main forces driving this exodus. Just under half of working women in Japan quit because they feel stalled in their careers.”
Japanese women who want to re-enter the workforce after having children also report that their chances are slim. Most of them (77%) wanted to resume their jobs but only 43 percent succeed in getting their careers back on track, compared to 73 percent in the US and 68 percent in Germany.
Even those lucky enough to find a job faced serious penalties in terms of earning power and job advancement. Forty-four percent said they were forced to take a pay cut, while others reported fewer management responsibilities or possibilities for promotion.
One final obstacle to higher female employment has been the prevailing myth that if more Japanese women work, the further the birth rate will decline, exacerbating Japan’s demographic pressures. However, if one plots female labor participation rates against birth rates for various countries, there is a distinctly positive—not negative—correlation between the two.
GETTING BACK ON TRACK
What would keep highly qualified Japanese women on the career track? Study coauthor Sylvia Ann Hewlett says two things:“the Availability and (the) de-stigmatizing of flexible work arrangements.”
“The majority of women who took an ‘off-ramp’ say they would not have quit their jobs if they had the option to choose a flexible work arrangement,” says Hewlett. “While some form of flexibility is available in most large companies, in reality, 69 percent of the women surveyed (say) that managers are not supportive of employees who utilize flex options; a substantial number say that people who have flexible schedules don’t get promoted and suffer career backlash.”
The majority of the report’s respondents say they would not have “off-ramped” had more flexible work arrangements been available; options such as the ability to work from home more or to arrive and leave the workplace at more flexible times of day.
HELP FOR THE JAPANESE ECONOMY
Ratio of females aged 25-64 with college degrees who are employed (2007), %
“It’s like trying to run a marathon using just one leg,” says Kathy Matsui, Chief Japan Equity Strategist with Goldman Sachs Tokyo.
Matsui has been researching the issue of Japan’s untapped female workforce since 1999, publishing several studies on the topic including Womenomics 3.0 in 2010.
Matsui herself is a good example of an educated senior executive who returned to the workforce after having children. However, she says the “push” factors don’t only apply to women with children but to non-mothers and single women as well.
“In many ways it (the “Off-Ramps” report) validated our original thesis from 1999 that there is a vast pool of talented and experienced women in Japan’s workforce who are simply untapped,” says Matsui.
With Japan facing a demographic crisis, this lack of utilization of a talented and highly educated resource is not merely an oversight; it’s an incredible waste of an economic opportunity. Women tend to be bigger spenders than men, consuming clothing, cosmetics, food, restaurant meals and other items. They are also becoming larger consumers of big ticket items such as holidays and real estate than ever before. Therefore, against a backdrop of anemic consumption, allowing more women into the workforce would provide a huge cash injection for the ailing Japanese economy. Matsui estimates that Japan’s GDP would grow by as much as 15% if the country could close its gender employment gap.
“It is simply because of an 8 million person increase to Japan’s workforce—from closing the gender gap in female versus male employment rates (with no productivity increases assumed). More workers mean more income, more consumption—a virtuous cycle.”
However, in a country notoriously resistant to change, closing the gender employment gap will not be easy, nor will it happen overnight. Cultural beliefs that keep women out of decision-making positions must change and the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ that prevents women from earning salaries equivalent to their male counterparts must also be addressed.
Other opportunities must also be created to close the ‘push’ factors cited in the “Off Ramps” study.
“This is a case where change can be driven by employers, without waiting for government policies to shift traditional mindsets,” says Hewlett. “Companies can create a female-friendly workplace by implementing initiatives that enable and encourage women to advance in their careers. These include formalizing flexible work arrangements, providing career development opportunities and leadership training for both women and men, training male managers to recognize the importance of diversity, showcasing female role models in director-level positions, and creating support/advocacy groups that enable women to build powerful networks.
WOMENOMICS 3.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
Some of the Womenomics 3.0 recommendations involve changing legislation, while others involve social changes and new cultural thinking from top to bottom in Japan’s rigid corporate culture.
“HR departments of companies also tend to quietly “discriminate” against employees (women and men, but especially women) who have large time gaps in their CVs,” says Matsui. “If the Equal Employment Opportunity Law were properly enforced, such discrimination would not be allowed. “Also, I used to be wholly opposed to diversity ‘quotas,’ but watching the positive impact that Norway’s mandatory/legal quota that females must account for at least 40% of boards of listed companies has made me re-think quotas, and as a first step, I think given where Japan is today, I think it may be useful to start a dialogue about introducing similar quotas in the public sector, such as in the Diet. Otherwise, I fear it will take far too long to “move Japan’s needle.”
While some might consider the “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps” report a case of “foreigners telling the Japanese what to do,” report co-author Sylvia Ann Hewlett disagrees. She says the study was actually a result of interviews with Japanese subjects, and it’s their views that are represented in the report.
“We wouldn’t presume to tell any country or culture how to behave. Our research reports are based on large surveys; in this case, we conducted in-depth anonymous interviews with more than 1,500 college-educated men and women. It’s their responses that illustrate the issues confronting women in the workplace and that suggest solutions.”
Sherbin adds, “We hope to follow up this report by focusing on the role of powerful career advocates – namely, high-level sponsors – in advancing and retaining women.”
“Not to diminish Japanese women’s sense of obligation to their families. But consider these figures: 63 percent of Japanese women say that they quit because their career wasn’t satisfying—compared to 26 percent in the US—and nearly half feel stalled in their careers, compared to 16 percent in the US,” adds Hewlett. “Given entrenched workplace traditions that still shunt women into dead-end ‘office lady’ jobs, salary inequities, and lack of role models, it’s a no-brainer for well-qualified Japanese women to “off-ramp” to focus on family for a period of time.”
Ultimately, including more highly qualified women in the workforce benefits everyone – employee, company, country and the economy. Resisting changes to the gender employment gap no longer makes sense for a country like Japan that badly needs all the talent it can find to get its economic house back in order.
