Japan’s carmakers are gleaming symbols of industrial strength. But there is one area in which they are not so shiny yet: employment practices that squander the potential of Japanese women. Both Toyota and Nissan have no women on their boards; Honda appointed its first only this year.
The picture is repeated across Japanese industry, where women hold only 7 per cent of managerial positions compared with almost 45 per cent in the US.
Female role models in Japanese business are few and far between. One of the few is Mitsuru Claire Chino, an executive officer at Itochu Corporation, a large general trading company. But she is such an unusual case that when she was appointed last year, the mere act of placing a woman in a senior job was enough to make headlines.