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Report: Japanese Female Company Presidents Set Record, Still Under 10%
Good news! There are more female company presidents in Japan than ever before. The bad news?
Japanese women are still fighting for equal treatment in the business world. One place where women are notably absent is in leadership positions. A new report has good news and bad news: there are more female company presidents in Japan than ever — but the number still remains well below 10% of the total.
The survey from private credit research company Teikoku Databank looked at the 1,190,000 companies in Japan to identify which had female company presidents (社長; shachou). A company president in Japan is a somewhat nebulous title but often designates the company’s overall leader.
The good news is that women now comprise 8.4% of all company presidents in Japan. That’s a record and a sizable increase from 1990, when only 4.5% of company presidents were women.
However, that number only grew by a mere 0.1% from 2023. It also means that, in 44 years, the number of women leading companies in Japan has only increased by 3.9% — i.e., it hasn’t even doubled.
