Despite pledges, Nintendo still has few female managers in Japan

Just 4.2% of managers at Nintendo Company in Japan are women, a number unchanged since the company first reported that gender-based stat in 2021, according to recent company filings.

Driving the news: Nintendo’s annual report, published yesterday, offers further insights into the workforce at the main offices of the game maker in Japan, including a stark gender divide in pay.

Details: Women at Nintendo Co. make, on average, 72% of what men are paid, according to the annual report, the company’s first to include the pay breakdown.

• Nintendo attributes that to issues of tenure in a place where workers stay at the company for an average of 14.3 years (and where veteran employees are mostly men).
• “The pay gap between male and female regular employees is mainly due to differences in the length of service and average age,” the company noted: “There is no difference in treatment between men and women in terms of salary or evaluation systems.”

Between the lines: The data covers Nintendo’s Japanese offices, which employed 2,779 workers as of the end of March.

• The stats about its Japanese workforce were calculated in accordance with a 2015 law intended to promote greater participation of women in the workplace.

Yes, but: While Nintendo did not report a pay breakdown for the full company, including its subsidiaries in North America and Europe, it did recently calculate that 23.5% of its managers worldwide are women.

The big picture: Japan’s gender wage gap is the largest among the G7 nations, followed by the United States’, Reuters reports.

• In 2021, Nintendo noted it intended to increase the proportion of women in management: “We are recruiting women and creating an environment in which women can build successful careers.”

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