Some Japanese banks may soon come under the spotlight for potential “gender washing” over the way they count the number of women in management positions.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency found a big discrepancy in responses from a regional bank survey of female managers. One group of lenders reported that women hold less than 10% of management roles, while for another group in the same survey, it was closer to 20%, according to Tatsufumi Shibata, the senior agency official in charge of regional financial institutions.
“I wonder if there is a difference in how they define managers?” he said in an interview.
The issue has broader implications for other industries in Japan, which has long lagged behind global counterparts for workplace diversity. The government has been urging companies to promote more women to leadership roles, while requiring greater disclosure including pay gaps. The $1.4 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund is allocating 500 billion yen ($3.77 billion) to an index of Japanese companies that do better on gender diversity.
Shibata said he’s not passing judgment on whether banks are inflating the number of women in managerial positions to look better on diversity scorecards. Rather, he said the banks should ask their own staff if the titles really carry weight.
“There are some job titles that make me wonder if they have responsibility and compensation that match managerial positions,” he said. For example, if male employees with the same titles as women don’t consider themselves managers, then “it cannot be helped but be called gender washing.”
Shibata said the survey responses are also likely to show signs of gender role fixation.
“There is a stereotypical unconscious bias, such as men do strategy planning and corporate banking, while women do asset management and clerical works,” he said. “There is also a clear pay gap.”
He said the agency is planning to disclose the results of the survey, without giving a timeline. The survey only covers regional lenders, not the nation’s megabanks like Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., or Mizuho Financial Group Inc..
Larger Banks
The potential for gender washing isn’t limited to regional banks. Some bigger lenders and insurance companies may also be counting as managers women with titles that don’t necessarily reflect their real authority, said two industry officials, who asked not to be identified speaking about their companies.
Japan has plenty of catching up to do on the gender gap. The country ranks 116th in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, trailing Tajikistan and Burkina Faso.
“Consistency and integrity are required for disclosure of a company’s human capital,” Shibata said.
Photograph: A pedestrian crosses a street near Yurakucho station in Tokyo, Japan on Monday, March 7, 2022. Photo credit: Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg
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