Half of Japan's firms mull adding female board members

Tokyo, June 21 (IANS) Nearly half of Japan's major corporations that have never had female board members are considering adding them, a survey revealed on Wednesday.

According to the poll conducted by national broadcaster NHK which covered 245 companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime section, 120 of them said they were considering adding female members to their boards for the first time, reports Xinhua news agency.

Shareholders in Japan are increasingly calling on companies to fix the skewed gender balance in their boardrooms, the public broadcaster reported.

Meanwhile, the survey showed that business leaders are reluctant to nurture their own female workers as executive material and choose instead to hire people from outside the company.

Most of the firms surveyed said they will seek female executives from outside, including lawyers and university professors, while only six are planning to select women from their own ranks.

Earlier this month, the Japanese government approved a women's empowerment policy package with the target of having women account for more than 30 per cent of board members at Prime-listed companies by 2030.