Tokyo: Japan aims to raise the proportion of female executives at companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s top-tier section to at least 19 percent by 2025 as an interim target, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday.

By setting the interim target, the government hopes to boost efforts to achieve 30 percent of the share of female corporate executives by 2030, as stipulated in its 2023 intensive policy for promoting gender equality adopted in June.

The share of female executives at companies in the Prime section stood at 13.4 percent as of the end of July, according to the Cabinet Office.

The figure was well below 38.8 percent for the Group of Seven major countries, excluding Japan, and 29.6 percent for the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, both in 2022.

“We will continue to support the recruitment and development of human resources and improve measures to help employees balance work with child-rearing and nursing care,” Kishida said at a related council meeting.

JIJI Press