Skip to main content

Nintendo report highlights gender pay differences in Japan

Average Nintendo employee age around 40.

Nintendo's annual report on its Japanese business, published last week, has highlighted the company's slow progress to increase the number of women in its managerial positions, as well as a gender pay gap typical of Japan.

Nintendo Co. Ltd - the company's Japanese operation - said just 4.2 percent of its managers are women, a stat which has remained the same since it previously reported this figure in 2021.

The average salary for a female employee is 72 percent that of an average man at Nintendo Co., the report continues (thanks, Axios).

Newscast: Nintendo makes clear there's life in Switch yet, while Microsoft finds an opportune moment to raise prices.Watch on YouTube

Nintendo says this figure is influenced by the fact it has historically held on to staff - the average tenure for a Nintendo employee is 14.3 years - and that this has led to it holding onto an aging male managerial group, who are paid more than younger, junior employees.

The average age of a Nintendo Co. employee is 39.9 years, across a staff total of 2779 people.

"The pay gap between male and female regular employees is mainly due to differences in the length of service and average age," Nintendo wrote in its report. "There is no difference in treatment between men and women in terms of salary or evaluation systems."

These figures reflect wider trends seen across Japan, where less than 10 percent of managers across the country are women, and where the average gender pay gap sits above 10 percent.

The Japanese government has set a target that 30 percent of managers across the country be women by 2030. It has also forced companies to begin publishing their own gender pay gaps for the first time - which is why Nintendo has now revealed its own here now.

Read this next