Current Perspectives on Asian Women in Leadership Japanese Women in Leadership

Despite government efforts to promote the active participation of women, female leadership in Japan still faces many challenges. In the Fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equality (decided by the Cabinet on December 25, 2020), referring to the underachievement of the target which was set in 2003, a new goal was set of increasing the percentage of women in leadership positions to around 30% in all areas of society as soon as possible in the 2020s. The question posed by this book is: What are the factors that hinder the active participation of female leaders in Japan? The 18 editors and co-authors are researchers and practitioners, such as managers of human resources development departments of companies, who are based in Asia, United States, Japan, and other regions. They attempt to analyze the current realities and difficulties faced by female leaders in Japan from the perspective of a variety of specialized fields such as leadership development theory, organizational development theory, pedagogy, international management, political science, sociology, family sociology, and gender studies.
 
Each chapter surveys the historical background, current realities, and issues of female leadership in the fields of economics, the private sector (large companies, small and medium enterprises, foreign companies), politics, education, agriculture, and NPOs/NGOs. Comparisons are made from an international perspective between female education, labor, and political participation in Japan and in other Asian countries, and the disparities and factors in female social participation in Asian countries are clarified. Outside of Asia, an examination is provided of the promotion of women to top management, country-specific policies, comparison of numerical targets, and introduction of gender quotas in developed countries in Europe and the United States. I am in charge of education (Chapter 10) and NPOs/NGOs (Chapter 12), and discussed the issues an underrepresentation of female researchers in academic field and female leaders in NPO/NGOs who face difficulties. I provide a discussion of factors that hinder female leadership and measures to demonstrate leadership based on history, statistics and actual cases.
 
This book, published as Volume 4 of the Current Perspectives on Asian Women in Leadership series, is the first attempt to analyze female leadership in Japan from multiple perspectives. Volumes 1–4 focus on female leadership in Asia, South Korea, India, and Japan, respectively. The chief editorial team for each country series consists of four researchers, including Yonjoo Cho. This book is co-edited by Nakamura, Horimoto, and series editor-in-chief Gary N. McLean.
 
At the end of each chapter, suggestions for the practical aspects of female leadership in Japan as well as research topics are presented, which also serve as strong messages for promoting female empowerment in Japan, which has not shown much progress. From a global perspective, gender-based inequality in social treatment has become even more prominent, such as the dismissal of women with an unstable employment status during the COVID-19 crisis. This book consistently emphasizes, based on a variety of data, that the development of female leadership and the training of female leaders are essential for the sustainable growth of the Japanese economy. It is hoped that this book will be useful for students as a fundamental source on female leadership research in Japan and international comparative research.
 

(Written by OGAWA Mariko, Project Associate Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies / 2023)