Statistics defined (p.3)
Total companies analyzed: The company sample size for each country profile.
Percentage of board seats held by women: Calculated by dividing the number of board seats held by women by the total number of board seats in a given sample. The same logic applies for the percentage of board chairs that are women and for the statistics provided for committees.
Women on boards: Denotes the total number of women holding directorships in a given country. Because a particular woman may hold more than one board seat across multiple companies, this number may be less than the total number of board seats held by women.
Stretch factor: Calculated by dividing the number of board seats occupied by women in a given country by the total number of women on boards in that particular country. The higher the stretch factor, the greater the number of board seats occupied by the same women director in a given country. A stretch factor of 1 indicates that all board seats in a given sample are held by different women.
Top five industries with highest percentage of women
Industry classifications were grouped into six different industries: financial services; consumer business; technology, media, and telecommunications; manufacturing; life sciences and health care; and energy and resources.(…)
[Section on Japan – p. 13]
Quotas
There are currently no government-mandated quotas requiring a certain number or percentage of women on boards of directors or in senior management positions.
Other initiatives
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has stated that many of his policies are intended to empower women and to promote higher participation rates in leadership positions. His goal is for Japan to have 30 percent of all leadership positions filled by women by 2020.
In 2013, the Tokyo Stock Exchange changed its disclosure rulings—listed companies are to disclose the number/percentage of women board members in their corporate governance reports.
KEIDANREN, an economic organization representing approximately
1,300 companies in Japan, has recommended that member companies
promote active participation by women and set quotas regarding the percentage of female representation in managerial positions. As of December 2014, more than 300 member companies had disclosed their initiatives, including their quota policies, on both the KEIDANREN website and their own.
Since fiscal year 2012, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry and the Tokyo Stock Exchange have been jointly conducting the “Nadeshiko Brand” initiative, an initiative to select and publicize enterprises that encourage female empowerment.
Based on the newly published annual reports, in 2014, the percentage of women serving on boards increased to 2.1 percent, while the total board seats held by women increased to 1.2 percent.
The numbers % Percentage change
Percentage of women on boards 1.6 0.4 (2012)
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The Board Director Training Institute (BDTI) is a "public interest" nonprofit in Japan dedicated to training about directorship, corporate governance, and related management techniques. It is certified by the Japanese government to conduct these activities as a regulated nonprofit. Read a summary about BDTI here, and see a menu of its services for both corporations and investors here.