The Gender Wage Gap in Japan: A Prefectural Ranking

Japanese government data sheds light on the relative earning status of men and women in the workforce. The most recent ranking was submitted by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare along with other materials to the meeting of a governmental project team promoting women’s professional advancement. The results regarding the gender-based wage gap were compiled from a study conducted in 2023, which shows women’s wages as a percentage of the wages of men (with full parity indicated as 100%).

According to the study, there was a gap of nearly 10 percentage points between prefectures at the bottom and top of the ranking. Tochigi Prefecture had the largest disparity in wages, with women’s standing at just 71.0% of men’s, while Kōchi Prefecture had the smallest at 80.4%. Tokyo ranked fourth worst, at 73.0%, while the national average was 74.8%. The wage gap in Japan remains wide compared to other countries, considering that the average among developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as of 2021, was 88.1%.

Japan lags far behind when it comes to the proportion of women in management positions, at 11.6%, compared to 40% in Western countries. The worst prefecture-by-prefecture ranking is Aichi Prefecture, with 6.4%, followed by Gifu, Mie, and Shizuoka.

The Ministry noted that “a modest correlation can be observed between the imbalance in the ratio of unmarried men and women and the wage gap between men and women in each area of the country,” which suggests the possibility that the wage gap is contributing to the outflow of young women from certain prefectures.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)