Despite the thirty years of the implement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, gender inequality in employment still remains unsolved. The primary factor of the gender inequality in employment in Japan is the deep-seated stereotyped roles for men and women in Japanese society. Child rearing and household affairs are largely regarded as women’s duties and about 60 percent of female workforce retires for childbearing. The second factor is corporate systems and customs deeply rooted in Japanese business community, which are only superficially gender-neutral. For instance, assessment standards of typical wage systems include subjective criteria that are susceptible to gender views of assessors, e.g. “enthusiasm,” “cooperativeness” and “tractability.” This article analyzes the current status of the doctrine of leading cases in relation to gender inequality in Japan, and proposes development of a framework to enhance the effectiveness of anti-discriminatory legislation, an efficient working- hour law to reduce long working hours of male labor force, and a system to apply the principle of equal pay for equal value work to the norms of lawsuit.
