Ranked 120th this year. Japan's gender equality: a mismatch between awareness and reality.

120th place. That's Japan's ranking in the recently released Gender Gap Index 2021. Following 110th place out of 149 countries in 2019 and 121st place out of 153 countries in 2020, Japan ranked 120th out of 156 countries in 2021, showing little change in position.

"Gender equality" is also set as one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in recent years (finally), it has become a topic of discussion in Japan as well. This year, we will likely hear this number, 120th place, mentioned many times.

<Table of Contents>
▼By the way, what is the Gender Gap Index?
▼What are people's attitudes toward gender equality? The World Values Survey, the world's largest-scale opinion poll
▼International Comparison of Gender Bias in Economics, Education, and Politics
▼The Gender Gap in Attitudes and Hesitation to Take Action
▼What Will the Post-COVID World Look Like?
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By the way, what is the Gender Gap Index?

The "Global Gender Gap Index" is an index published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which organizes the Davos Conference introduced in the previous article of this series. It measures the degree of gender equality achieved by each country.

It evaluates 14 indicators,
① Economic participation and opportunity
② Educational attainment
③ Health and survival
④ Political Empowerment

to calculate a gender gap index for the country's overall society. This index considers a state of achieved gender equality as "1" and a state of complete inequality between men and women as "0".

Japan's scores in each category are: ① Economic Participation and Opportunity: 0.604, ② Educational Attainment: 0.983, ③ Health and Survival: 0.973, and ④ Political Empowerment: 0.061. This reveals that Japan is particularly far from achieving gender equality in the economic and political spheres.

Gender inequality in economic and political spheres is a global challenge

However, gender inequality in the economic and political spheres is not a challenge unique to Japan. Figure 1 above overlays the global average (purple) with Japan's score (yellow-green).

Even at the global average, Education (0.950) and Health (0.975) are close to 1, indicating high levels of gender equality. In contrast, the Economy stands at a low 0.583, and Politics is even lower at 0.218. Yes, gender inequality in the economic and political spheres is a global challenge. (That said, Japan's score in the political sphere is undeniably exceptionally low...)

Gender gaps are narrowest in Western Europe and widest in the Middle East and North Africa

Figure 2 above compares the Gender Gap Index and the average scores by category across world regions, with darker colors indicating higher levels of gender equality.

This clearly shows that the gender gap is narrow in Western Europe and North America, while it is large in the Middle East and North Africa. Incidentally, Japan's overall Gender Gap Index is 0.656. This is lower than both the East Asian average and the global average.

What about people's attitudes toward gender equality? The World Values Survey, the world's largest-scale opinion poll

The WEF Gender Gap Index we've examined so far attempts to measure the degree of gender equality achievement based on objective data, such as the proportion of women in key government and corporate positions and the gender pay gap.

So, what about people's perceptions? Understanding the attitudes of individuals within a society is crucial for considering its norms—the unspoken rules and "atmosphere" within that society. Do countries with higher Gender Gap Index rankings also have higher levels of public awareness? Or might there be a gap between perceptions and reality?

To explore this, let's consider the World Values Survey, which DENTSU SOKEN INC. has participated in since 1990. This survey includes questions on gender and serves as a key data source cited in the UN's "Gender Social Norms Index."

The World Values Survey has been conducted in over 100 countries and regions since 1981. Here, we will use data from 77 countries (available as of September 2020) from the 7th World Values Survey, conducted between 2017 and 2020.

Although the number of countries surveyed is smaller than those covered by the WEF Gender Gap Index, it includes representative countries from many regions and is sufficiently representative for reference purposes. Detailed international comparisons from the Seventh World Values Survey can be viewed here.

Approval for "Women have the same rights as men" stands at 80%, ranking 45th out of 77 countries

First, regarding questions on overall societal gender equality, one asks whether "women having the same rights as men" is "essential to the nature of democracy." In Japan, 80.8% of respondents answered that it is "essential to democracy." This indicates that 80% of people affirm gender equality.

While this figure appears high at first glance, when ranked by country, Japan placed 45th out of 77 countries, slightly below the middle.

Does a high ranking on the Gender Gap Index necessarily mean a positive attitude toward gender equality?

Countries like those in Northern Europe and Western Europe, which also rank high in the Gender Gap Index (GGI), immediately stand out among the top-ranked nations. However, a closer look reveals Greece (GGI: 98th) at 3rd place and Bangladesh (GGI: 65th) at 10th place. Japan, ranked 45th, is sandwiched between France (GGI: 16th) and the Czech Republic (GGI: 78th). Furthermore, Malaysia, the lowest-ranked country in this graph, holds a higher GGI ranking at 112th than Japan.

While this data alone doesn't prove anything conclusively, it suggests that a country's level of gender equality achievement doesn't necessarily correlate directly with its people's level of support for gender equality. In other words, there are cases where people hold high expectations for gender equality, but society hasn't caught up yet.

International Comparison of Gender Bias in Economics, Education, and Politics

Next, let's examine three questions related to gender bias. These ask whether respondents agree or disagree with the following statements:

"Men are better suited than women for executive positions."
"University education is more important for men than for women."
"Men are better suited than women to be political leaders."

These correspond to the categories in the Gender Gap Index: ① Economy, ③ Education, and ④ Politics. Incidentally, to enable time-series comparisons, this survey has used the same questionnaire since 1981. Consequently, from our perspective in 2021, some may feel that "the questions themselves are discriminatory?" If so, please understand that the reason is as stated above.

First, the question asking whether "men are more suited than women to be executives." We ranked 77 countries in descending order based on the percentage agreeing with this statement. It's a bit complicated, but in this graph, lower rankings indicate fewer people believing "men are more suited than women to be executives," meaning weaker gender role stereotypes.

As shown in Figure 4 above, Japan ranks 54th out of 77 countries, placing it more in the lower group. The bottom group includes many countries from Northern Europe, Western Europe, and Oceania, which are leaders in gender equality.

Next, education. Only 12.6% of Japanese respondents "strongly agree" or "agree" that "a university education is more important for men than for women," ranking 48th out of 77 countries.

As shown in Figure 6 above, the percentage agreeing that "men are better suited than women to be political leaders" ranks 50th out of 77 countries. While politics is a category where Japan received particularly harsh evaluations in the WEF Gender Gap Index, public awareness does not necessarily align with this low rating. In fact, the results indicate that Japan's gender bias in politics is relatively weak, following Nordic, Western European, and Oceanian countries.

So why does gender bias seem so strong?

So far, we've compared the WEF's Gender Gap Index with the findings of the 7th World Values Survey. What emerges is a gap between the reality of gender issues in Japanese society and people's perceptions. Looking at the proportion of women in parliament and management positions, or the gender pay gap, Japan's path to gender equality appears long and arduous. Yet, from the perspective of people's values and awareness, it cannot be said that gender bias exists to a degree commensurate with this harsh reality.

Japan's Barriers: "Gender Gap in Awareness" and "Hesitation to Take Action"

Why can't Japan bridge this frustrating gap? While exploring the reasons exceeds the scope of this article, I would like to present two findings from DENTSU SOKEN INC.'s sixth "Gender Awareness Survey" (DENTSU SOKEN COMPASS), conducted this past February, as future discussion points for advancing gender equality.

The first is the "gender gap in awareness." When asked, "Do you think Japanese society as a whole has achieved gender equality?", 64.6% of respondents overall answered that "men are treated more favorably." However, when broken down by gender, 54.1% of men and 75.0% of women agreed, revealing a 20.9-point gap. This suggests a potential difference in how men and women perceive the current state of affairs. Given the overwhelmingly high proportion of men in decision-making positions in Japan today, this gender gap in awareness should not be overlooked.

While opposition to gender equality itself is no longer widespread, many people become cautious when it comes to actually implementing systems or taking corrective measures.

Indeed, according to the International IDEA's Gender Quota Database, approximately 130 countries and regions have already introduced some form of quota system, including at the local election level. While caution is not inherently bad, considering Japan's lagging efforts toward gender equality compared to the rest of the world, there is little time to spare. For details on the 6th DENTSU SOKEN INC. Compass "Survey on Gender Awareness," please see here.

What will the post-COVID world look like?

As reported by UN documents and various government data, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a greater negative impact on women than on men. The World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap Report 2021" indicates that closing the gender gap will now take 135.6 years, extending the timeline by approximately 35 years from the 99.5 years projected in 2020. Reasons cited include a regression in gender equality in the political sphere since the previous report and a broader societal slowdown in closing the gender gap.

Even amidst the severe challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions about gender equality have finally gained momentum in Japan. Issues surrounding gender that were previously overlooked are now being brought to light one after another. Keeping this momentum going and translating it into societal change is likely the only way to push Japan up from its current 120th place ranking.
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