A New High, But Still Only 8.2% of Japanese Companies Have Female Presidents

An analysis of 1.2 million companies nationwide by Teikoku Databank showed that, as of April 2022, the percentage of female presidents in Japan increased 0.1 points from the previous year to 8.2%. While there has been a gradual, continuous increase totaling 3.5 points since 1990, the rate still remains less than 10%.

In the World Economic Forum’s Global Gap Report announced in July 2022, Japan ranked 116th out of 146 countries, and fell from 117th to 121st in the economy category. It also ranked below the world average for wage equality and the percentage of women in managerial positions. The government has set the “promotion of women’s active participation in the workplace” as a key policy, but has not put sufficient effort into the advancement of women in the economic field.

The majority of female presidents, at 50.7%, succeeded to that role in a family business, compared to 40.0% of men. Women who got the top job through internal promotion accounted for 8.4%, while this figure for men was 11.8%, and external recruitment was 1.4% for women and 2.2% for men—an indication that there are fewer cases where women have had career-based appointments.

Graduates of Nihon University accounted for the highest number of female presidents, an increase of 23 women from the previous year to 269. Keiō University and Waseda University ranked second and third.

Top Universities that Female Presidents Graduated From

Created by Nippon.com based on data from Teikoku Databank.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)