KUNIKO URANO is the first, yes, the very first woman board member of Japan’s Komatsu Ltd., a 98-year-old company that is the world’s No. 2 construction and mining equipment maker.

The path Urano, 63, took to the boardroom and the reason she’s still a solo member on Komatsu’s board say a great deal about Japan’s difficulties in bridging the gender gap in a country that most acknowledge needs more women in positions of influence.

Worries about Japan’s shrinking workforce and aging demographics have prompted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for years to promote lowering barriers that keep women from contributing fully to the economy. Though he famously outlined goals to create a “Japan in which women shine” and has been pushing for more hiring and promotion for women, Japan has yet to see real results.

While Japanese women’s workforce participation has reached a record, the country continues to grapple with a number of challenges: the female share of board seats is the lowest in the Group of Seven at 5.3 percent, far below 43 percent in France and 22 percent in the United States, and there’s a wage gap of about 25 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Japan ranked 121th of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index, according to a report released Dec. 17.

“Women’s hard work will be the source of the company’s competitiveness,” Urano, who is Komastu’s senior executive officer overseeing human resources and education, said this month in an interview in Tokyo, citing the company’s message.

Urano said that human resources issues such as the way workers are assigned jobs matter in terms of developing a pool of women who can rise to be leaders. For instance, Urano is concerned that women not be promoted too quickly, as there could be a high risk of failure.

And she said women in Japan themselves are part of the problem — they often don’t raise their hands and seek promotion.

“Women should be assigned appropriate work that will enable them to grow step by step rather than giving them difficult jobs that would ruin them,” she said. “I also want to see women themselves change,” she said, adding that women shouldn’t quit or “decline managerial positions when offered.”

Urano has taken on a role in its diversity push to attract women to the male-dominated workplace and promote them to be managers. At issue for Japan’s economy is not only a big gender gap, but also a demographic crisis as its working-age population is set to fall 40 percent by 2055.

(SD-Agencies)