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Business Daily
Raising Japan’s female leaders
00:17:29
Why does the country rank so poorly - and what is being done to change that?
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Transcript35 lines
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. I love ravioli. Since when do you speak Italian? Since we partnered with SAP Concur. Their integrated travel and expense platform and breakthrough solutions with AI gave me time back to dive into our financial future. We expand into Europe in 2027, so I'm getting ready. Well, you can predict the future. I can predict you'll like that message. What message? Oh, hey, we all got bonuses. You can save for college now. I don't have kids. You don't say SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more@concur.com Vanity Fair calls BritBox a delicious streamer. Collider says everyone should be watching. Catch Britain's next best series with Britbox. Streamer claim new originals like Code of Silence. You Read Lips right And Lindley, based on the best selling mystery series Take it from here and don't miss the new season of Karen Pirie coming this October. You don't look like. Please. I'll take that as a compliment. See it differently when you stream the best of British TV with BritBox. Watch with a free trial today. Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Phoebe Amoroso. Today, Japan's efforts to raise the number of female leaders as the country lags behind in global gender gap rankings.
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There are really, really interesting and good female founders or minority founders, but they may not get the same access to capital in the same way as male founders do.
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We take a look at an initiative aiming to build a community of women founders. So we wanted to create somewhere very, very safe for female entrepreneurs in Japan. The executive vice president of Japan's most prestigious educational institution shares how it's trying to shake off its men only image.
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Let's say 10 years ago, we really can't talk about gender on this campus.
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And we hear from one of Japan's youngest female politicians on how the country needs more women in politics.
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You know, half the time when I'm walking into parliament, I get stopped by the guards because they think I'm an intern or they think that I'm not an mp.
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That's all coming up in today's Business Daily. I'm at Herrise, a startup event. It's a collaboration between Shibuya Ward in central Tokyo and Startup lady, an organization that supports women entrepreneurs, Japanese and non Japanese female founders have gathered here today to share advice and experiences. Today's fundraising actually, I want to learn about basic knowledge about fundraising and because I just started trying to make my own restaurant in Shibuya I wanted to be involved in the women ecosystem in Japan because I mean we don't really have so many entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs. So this is a really great opportunity to get to know each other. Have there been any specific challenges you faced or are facing as a female entrepreneur? Yeah, fundraising. Yeah, it's been quite difficult. As VC capitalists, they tend to choose younger men because easy to control and also like easy to talk to so they can be friends to each other easily, you know, in compared to, you know, making friends with women. So yeah, I'm not really chosen by them. So I challenged maybe like 40 VCs but not have been succeeded to get funds yet. Japan has unusually low gender equality relative to its high level of economic development. This year it ranked 118th out of 148 economies on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index. That put it the lowest among OECD countries. The government's original target of having 30% of leadership roles held by women by 2020 was quietly pushed back by a decade. But things are slowly changing.
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If you look at the sheer number of female workers or women working in the economy, it's been steadily going up since somewhere around 2011 or 2012. That's when we started to see a very strong government sponsored programs. You know, whether they are nursing, childcare facilities.
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I'm speaking with Yumiko Murakami, co founder of mpower, Japan's first female led venture capital fund.
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You see if you look at the female labor market participation in Japan, it was on the below OECD average. In 2012, 13 started to go up. Now it's higher than that of the United States. So that's one big improvement in terms of how many women are working in Japan versus say 10 years ago, 15 years ago also compared to other countries. That's great. The flip side, the challenge is yes, there are more women working. Yes, the labor market, the female labor market participation has gone up quite nicely. You still see a pretty big income gap between men and women.
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Women in Japan earn on average just under 75% of what their male counterparts are paid. As the country's population shrinks, women are feeling a much needed labor shortfall. But that doesn't mean they're rising to the top. This year, Yumeko Murakami and her co founders launched W Power Fund, the first in Japan to focus solely on supporting female founders and women empowerment businesses.
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There are really, really interesting and good female founders or minority founders, but they may not get the same access to capital in the same way as male founders do, which creates opportunities for people like us. You know, we are investors. We look for opportunities that are interesting in terms of financial returns. And quite frankly, we thought Japan actually has a lot of interesting business opportunities.
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The Tokyo Metropolitan government put up capital for half the fund, with the remainder coming from private sector companies. Yumeko Murakami says it was encouraging how much interest they received, but she says it's still a tough environment for female entrepreneurs trying to get funding in the close knit VC industry. The gender imbalance has also led to harassment cases.
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There is this tendency of having a power, sort of unbalanced power structure and power is on the side of chick writers who in the case of Japan are mostly men and in the case of startup founders, mostly men. When there are men and men, maybe those issues do not, you know, become issues. When there are only one or two women on the founder's side and almost all men on the check writing side, which is venture capitalists. Women may not feel very comfortable. Women may not feel safe. Unfortunately, there have been a number of sexual harassment incidents that have occurred in the last several months. Very difficult situations that female professionals in the B.C. industry have been forced to be in.
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Safety is a word I kept coming across when looking into initiatives to support female entrepreneurs. It's one of the key concerns of Moeko Suzuki, president and co founder of Startup lady, which organized the Herri Startup Event International on the bottom floor for Japanese entrepreneurs. I started my business 10 years ago and at that time I met my co founder Amy and she told me I like to start my own business but I don't know where to start. And that's where we were wondering if.
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There'S any organization that could support those.
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Kind of issues or fears or problems that the entrepreneurs has and especially for.
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Female and non Japanese.
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And we just feared there's no organization like this. So that's when we started to thinking about we should create some safe space for women and also place for entrepreneurs.
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To get together, talk about business, ease.
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Their mind and also get the mindset. So we wanted to create somewhere very, very safe for female entrepreneurs in Japan that are even like they're not Japanese. Somewhere where we can actually provide a space that is safe for them. One thing I can't help noticing at the event, there's far more non Japanese female entrepreneurs than Japanese. As Moeko Suzuki tells me, there's still a lack of female role models in Japan to inspire younger generations. You're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service and Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings Fairy, underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. This is the story of the 1. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers. All so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. I'm Phoebe Amoroso, and today I'm in Japan, finding out why the country ranks so far behind others when it comes to gender equality and what is being done to change that. Gender stereotypes persist in education. Compared to other OECD nations, Japan has one of the lowest percentages of female students in STEM sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. Then there's Tokyo University, considered Japan's most prestigious educational institution. Only 20% of its undergraduates are women, and even fewer are researchers. That's something they're trying to change. Professor Kaori Hayashi is Tokyo University's Executive vice president.
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In 2022, we launched a program called U Tokyo Gender Equity Initiative with the hashtag WeChange. And there are three pillars in this initiative. The first is that to raise awareness across university campus so that all the members of the community should recognize that gender diversity is very important. And secondly, we would like to set up programs for women, especially the rising young women scholars, so that they can thrive in sciences.
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The final pillar of the initiative is a concrete target. The university aims to raise the number of female faculty members from 16% in 2022 to 25% in 2027. To do this, they give subsidies to departments that hire female professors. So far, the ratio has risen to 18%. I asked Professor Hayashi about their progress.
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The progress we have made so far has been very incremental and gradual, but gradually and surely we have made progress. So 10 years ago, for example, let's say 10 years ago, we really can't talk about gender on this campus. This is something that you. It's not an issue at. For example, at campus level, there are gender studies scholars or there are very famous feminist professors. But you don't talk about gender or feminism at the governance level. But at the moment, almost all the department heads talk about how they best hire women professors. Even if they are not successful, they feel that it is really necessary for this university to hire more women in order to thrive their own science areas. So that's a big change. I think that awareness has been raised. Secondly, we do have some more women professors. Actually, what we have been struggling is a younger level. We have to educate more women to become professors. And that is the big challenge.
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The problem, Professor Hayashi tells me, is they're still facing a limited candidate pool, especially when it comes to stem. Girls aren't encouraged to apply to Tokyo University, and sometimes they're even discouraged.
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We send some of our female students to their own high schools where they graduated and talk with the high school students how they spend their campus life at the University of Tokyo. And that's the best advertisement we have for high school students, how the University of Tokyo is. And many of them are really convinced because they cannot really imagine how a girl can make a career at the University of Tokyo, even how a girl can have fun at this campus.
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It's clear from our conversation that a broader policy shift is needed to support women leaders in education and business. But politics is where Japan lags behind the most. Athia Eri is an MP for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and is also parliamentary Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs. She's one of the youngest female parliamentarians in Japan.
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So I always talk about this in my campaigns and it's one of the things I put front and center in my political life as well. And that is to make sure that As a mature 21st century democracy, we have full representation in Japanese politics of the full spectrum of Japanese people that we are trying to serve. Currently in the lower house where I am, the women only are at 10.3%.
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I asked her what the barriers were to women entering politics.
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One obvious answer is that because there are very few women in politics already, there are less people who are of your same gender who are doing this job. And so lack of role models, lack of precedence and lack of attunement refinement of our working culture to a more gender balanced representation and gender balanced life.
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Afia Eri tells me her days can start at 6am and run until late at night, making it difficult for working mothers who are still expected to assume responsibility for housework and childcare. Women who do pursue a political career face further headwinds.
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Female representatives are more likely to face Harassment, both online and in real life while they campaign. Studies show that for female representatives, this continues even after they're elected. They also tend to face more challenges to their legitimacy of their mandate after they're elected, including in harassment ways. But for example, for myself, I'm in my third year as a representative and even to this day, you know, half the time when I'm walking into parliament or walking to my own office, I get stopped by the guards because they think I'm an intern or they think that I'm not an mp and I have to consistently tell them that I'm an MP and I'm entitled to be there and I'm going to my own office.
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Change might be underway. While recording this program, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party elected a new leader, Sanae Takechi, making her Japan's first female prime minister. Takaichi is a staunch conservative who opposes changing the law to allow married women to keep their maiden names. She has only appointed two women in her cabinet, but some hope that a female leader will set a precedent and open the door for more women to enter politics. Afia Eri is optimistic.
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We're all in agreement that we need more women. I haven't faced a single representative who says that we don't, you know, that are not supportive of women coming into politics. So that creates an environment where, you know, female participation is now encouraged and different stakeholders are now seeking, actively seeking a female representative.
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Female candidates, the younger generation is also helping to drive a shift in perceptions. I went to one of the top high school in my prefecture, Ibaraki. So it is rather usual to go to Tokyo University. Sakura Toyama is an undergraduate at the University of Tokyo and was an attendee at the Herri startup event. Aside from that aspect, the reason I wanted to go to University of Tokyo was because when I went to the open campus, I saw the seniors I met were very nice. And since I'm from the countryside of Ibaraki Prefecture, I thought if I go to Tokyo University, I would be able to stand a similar world line as them. Sakura is currently building a recruitment business, but she has longer term goals in mind. My goal is to reduce those who is suffering from poverty or those who don't have any hope for their life because of the social system. This problem was the one I experienced during my childhood. That's why I started to think it may be better to approach from the political rather than business way. Japan still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality, but across all spectrums of society, there are efforts to increase the number of women leaders with hopes that they will become the role models of the future. Thank you for listening to this episode from me, Phoebe Amoroso in Tokyo. To hear more episodes, search for the program wherever you get your BBC podcasts Limu Emu and Doug. Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Fairy Underwritten by Liberty Mutual and insurance company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.