Japan ranked 101st among 145 countries with regard to gender equality in a new survey, up three notches from last year, but still the worst of all Group of Seven industrialized nations.
The Global Gender Gap Report 2015 was released Nov. 19 by the World Economic Forum, known for its Davos meeting in Switzerland.
It compiled the rankings based on an index of how well countries use their female talent pool. The Global Gender Gap Index consists of 14 items in the fields of politics, economic opportunity, education and health.
Among G-7 countries, Germany, France and Britain were located between the 10th and the 20th rankings. Except for Japan, Italy was the lowest among the remaining six G-7 countries at 41.
Among all 145 countries, the gender gap narrowed in the fields of education and health. However, big gaps remained in politics and economic opportunity.
Since the first report was issued in 2006, the economic gap between men and women at workplaces in all the surveyed nations has narrowed only 3 percent. The gender gap during the same period closed by 4 percent in all of the four fields.
“It will take another 118 years to close this gap completely,” the WEF said.
Japan’s three-notch rise was attributable to an increase in the political field. According to the data, as of January 2015, the number of female Cabinet ministers increased to four from two the previous year. The ratio of female Lower House members also rose slightly.
However, the gender gap worsened in Japanese workplaces. That was because the wage disparity widened, even though a higher ratio of women took part in the work force. Although the number of female workers is increasing, many of them are nonregular employees whose wages are kept low.
(This article was written by Ichiro Matsuo in Paris and Sawa Okabayashi in Tokyo.)
- « Prev
- 1
- Next »
