Japan’s Gender Gap Index Shows High Inequality

By Honoka Karikomi

Through the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and a period of rapid economic growth, Japan has grown to become the third largest economy in the world by GDP. Thanks to its thunderous automobile and electronics industries and bold economic reforms of the 1960s, its global position has risen considerably since the immediate post-war period.

However, there is an area which Japan still lags behind in compared to the Western world: the Gender Gap. According to the World Economic Forum, in 2021 Japan’s Gender Gap Index (GGI), which measures the levels of equality between men and women in a country, ranked 120th out of 156 countries. In this article, we will delve into the current situation of gender inequality in Japan, and how this is affecting Japanese businesses.