Women's working hours underscore gender disparity in Japan

Jan 20, 2022 | News On Japan

Jan 20, 2022 (Nikkei) - A gender gap is still strongly discernible in Japan's working environment with a bipolarization of working hours among female workers, casting a new shadow over the slowing growth of the Japanese economy.

The participation of women in the Japanese workforce itself is increasing. The percentage of women in the 30 to 34 age bracket who are working or actively looking for work stood at 78% in 2020, up from 52% in 1990, according to a labor force survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the average percentage of 15- to 64-year-old women in the labor force in the member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was 65%. Japan's ratio of 73% was higher than those of the U.S. and other countries.

Gender-based disparities, however, still remain in Japan, as shown by the distribution of working hours. There are two peaks for hours worked by female workers in Japan, while there is a single concentration of hours for male workers, according to data compiled by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The data show that 32% of women workers worked between 40 and 48 hours per week in 2020, while another large section of the female workforce -- 26% -- worked 15 to 29 hours. Working hours for men had one peak, with 46% of men working between 40 and 48 hours.

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