A lot of the issues concerning gender equality in Japan are strongly influenced by the Japanese style of employment. This paper explains the impact that the Japanese-style employment has had on women and outlines proposals how to reform the system.

It is divided into three sections. The first section describes the defining characteristics of the Japanese-style employment, while the second section links common gender issues such as the employment rate, insecurity of tenure, gender pay gap, and the low number of women in leadership roles to this system. The third and last section identifies policy implications and proposals to address these.