Less than 1% of top-listed firms on Tokyo bourse led by women

Just 0.8 percent, or 15, of the 1,836 companies listed on the top-tier Prime Market on the Tokyo bourse were headed by women as of the end of January, according to credit research firm Teikoku Databank Ltd., reflecting the struggle among major businesses to embrace diversity in management.

The small number of women in positions with representative rights at top-tier firms compares unfavorably with a record high 8.2 percent of approximately 1.19 million businesses in Japan reporting they had a female president in 2022, the research found.

Japan is “extremely slow compared with other countries,”...