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I'm just not sure these people are understanding the problem the right way round. Salaries and prestige are relatively low for developers in Japan, so it's relatively easy for other jobs to compete for prospective workers and draw them away from technology. That will be true even if more women are interested in the field than formerly.

In fact, convincing many women to commit to the field early in their educations for reasons of representation, rather than because the economics are compelling to them, would only make the situation worse: relatively more workers competing for jobs with salaries that are already low.

Japanese enterprises do not value software engineering talent and there are probably some underlying fundamentals behind that -- in workplaces with relatively low independence, it's hard to leverage engineering talent for much -- which, left unchanged, will make initiatives like this into a game of musical chairs.

I actually think we have the same problem, to a much lower degree, in the US. Clearly software engineers do get paid extremely well at top companies, and are paid reasonably at lower tiers. But in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, software engineers on average are only paid a little more than registered nurses and dental hygienists.

Software Engineers: ~145k Registered Nurses: ~140k

(note these are for SF and San Jose, not overall - the source for all this is at US News Best jobs which relies on labor dept data: https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs).

I've left a version of this comment a bunch of times on HN over the years, but I'll add the usual provisos - I don't object to nurses making lots of money, or more than software engineers for that matter, but I will point out that SEs overall really aren't remarkably well paid compared to other educated professionals. And while SEs at the top make well above the median, so do many nurses in specialties that require a MS or higher.

I'm just not convinced that women would be well served by leaving nursing, law, finance, or medicine to go into tech. I don't mean this in a work-life balance "do you really want this" way. I mean, if women want to build substantial independent wealth, power, and influence, they may be well served by avoiding tech careers (or, if they work in tech, avoiding SE roles). Honestly, this is pretty much the same advice I'd give men. I'm hesitant to discourage anyone from tech or SE roles, since clearly people do have great careers in them, and it's the right choice for some people. What I resist is the notion that people should be choosing it more often than they do, when in fact, I think the low to medium level of interest in SE careers is probably the product outcome of smart people weighing the demands and rewards of a career relative to their personal professional and life interests.

I consider it very rational that US citizens with choice generally choose not to become developers in the valley in the numbers that Silicon Valley execs think they should. It's not a huge coincidence that the people who staff these positions disproportionately work on visas that limit their range of free choice in career path.

I agree with the general premise of your comment.

In addition software engineering suffers from the worst ageism of any career which basically means that around mid to late 30s one starts to run into issues. Now contrast that with many other careers where one’s value invariably increases as one gains experience.

Given that, my general advice is even if you start with software engineering, transition out to other roles very quickly unless you’re in the top 1%, can be a founder or truly love software engineering.

You sure about that? I came across two different surveys of Japanese workers that suggest women in tech are paid relatively well compared to women in other industries.

[1] https://kimi.wiki/work/income ("IT, Communications")

[2] https://www.tsunagulocal.com/en/42243/ ("Informations services")

> Salaries and prestige are relatively low for developers in Japan, so it's relatively easy for other jobs to compete for prospective workers and draw them away from technology.

Another aspect to this is that IT is one of the few fields where there is a low tradition lock. Getting into the more prestigious and high paying areas can require either a better diploma, stronger adhesion to stereotypical profiles, or working way longer inside to climb the ranks.

In comparison IT companies will be more focused on competence, accept lower social status in exchange for performance. I think this is true in other countries as well, but Japan looks to me like a poster child for this bias.

>Salaries and prestige are relatively low for developers in Japan

Yeah, I was pretty surprised to hear that a Senior Engineering Manager at Rakuten, the "Japanese Amazon" and one of their top software companies, only has the TC of somewhere around $100k USD. And the position was in Tokyo, not exactly a cheap place.

Many senior engineers at "top tier" domestic software companies get paid somewhere around $70-$90k, which is pathetic for even LCOL areas in the U.S.

Interesting article. The line of argumentation goes like this:

1) The birth rate in Japan has been below-replacement since 1974.

2) As a result, the population is shrinking.

3) Because the population is shrinking, there isn't enough workers.

Alright, I'm with you so far.

4) Therefore, more women need to get full-time jobs.

Uh... ?

I feel like I'm going nuts. Everywhere in the prestige media the solution presented is "women should just have a full-time job and raise 2.1 children at the same time". But does that actually exist anywhere?

I hear about paid child leave in the Nordic countries as a solution. But Sweden has a birth rate of 1.76, Denmark 1.73, Norway 1.56... and the curve isn't even trending up! Paid child leave and government childcare is great and cool, but as a solution to below-replacement fertility it clearly and obviously doesn't work, and for some reason nobody wants to say this.

The other answer is immigration, but the problem then is then you're competing with every other country in the world, and Japanese firms pay way, way, way below FAANG.

"General! Our marines are outnumbered! Zerglings are eating them alive!"

"Send in the SCVs!"

"But where will we get our minerals from? How will we train more marines?"

"Send in the SCVs!"

...

I mean, it made sense as a short-term measure during WW2 to boost arms production. But you can't run a society this way long term. It's insane.

"Help us, we're starving!"

"Just eat more of your seed corn; trust me!"

...

It's like a society that never figured out crop rotation. Yeah, you can grow corn for a while, but you also need to rotate in some cover-crops and nitrogen-fixers. You need to let the soil rest and restore fertility. You can't have it pumping out economic output season after season.

> The other answer is immigration...

Transplanting a brain to save the body?

Seriously, women getting full time jobs just means further population decreases.
Not too loudly, we want the people with comms degrees to feel useful when they write this kind of article
Meh, the replacement rate issue is a temporary problem. We can't just make more and more kids to sustain the unsustainable... better hit the wall early on and rebuild something smarter than continue in the direction we're heading
Maybe everyone can go part time and focus more on raising children.
Did Japanese companies ever resolve the issue surrounding low tech worker pay yet? If not, then Japanese women interested in tech might face even more adversity since gender pay gap is another issue in Japan.
Some are but there are still a lot of hold outs. I recently struck up a conversation with a female working for one of the larger ones. Probably had 10 years experience but was being paid close to what she would've made at a conbini.
Agreed.

This problem is easily solvable with increased pay, but this is tough to pull off in the Japanese corporate system.

No. Women will say shouganai, men will say mendokusai, and nothing will change.

If you suggest change, you will be consistently attacked, both by locals and other immigrants.

From what I gathered in the Asia region you really only have Singapore or a Chinese tier 1 and maybe some tier 2 cities as a option(financially). Where you can actually earn enough to not waste years of income when you return again to the west.

If they want to attract more tech workers they really need to up their salaries. People might go for maybe cultural reason or whatever but that pool is not enough to close the gap is guess.

> If they want to attract more tech workers they really need to up their salaries.

Having a good salary is important but the work-life balance is just as important, if not more. I lived in Japan for a years (not as a dev, am now); I can make do with a lower salary due to healthcare being mostly sorted (you pay 30%, government pays 70%) and a good standard of living (better than London IMO), but I don't want to work absurd hours and deal with a toxic working culture, alongside a low salary.

I've met many talented women in Japan via Meetups and Women Who Code Tokyo and there's definitely no shortage of great developers. People just want a fair work-balance and an honest salary, which they are more likely to find at a gaishikei (foreign-run company)

Japan has also completely blocked immigration for almost 2 years now (for COVID reasons).
A reason I believe why women won't come tech industry is that tech people is considered to nerdy so uncool, and and programmer is hard work (death march is popular word). But now programming become booming popular for kids (I don't know reason) so maybe feelings are changing.
Are you able to expand this a bit? It is difficult to follow the logic
I wonder if teachers in Japan really discourage girls from learning about computer science and other things like that.

If so, that is crazy. I think there should be an issue with that. I guess it will be interesting to imagine Japan as a women-oriented society.

I think women in general are less interested in tech. Actually the most oppressive cultures have highest number of women in tech
Does Japan still have the issue (compared to a US perspective, though it happens here to) where workers are expected to work very long hours to be seen as productive or a team player or whatever?

If that was still a problem and I could get a remote job for a Western style company with better working hours that would be a serious decision point.

Not to mention the salary issue others have mentioned that I wasn’t aware of.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion but if Japan doesn't want them, I believe many American companies will.
I hope not, economic warfare on a country should be frowned upon.
Japanese people can run their country however way they want.

In the Netherlands one always chooses money over religion, race, culture and tradition. Your ridiculous pink hair and absurd American culture will be tolerated to service a higher purpose.

they can only up their immigration and import workers from other countries like the US. E.g. there are lots of engineers graduating from Chinese, India, and East European countries. Maybe Japan is becoming less attractive for Chinese since the Chinese coastal areas are getting rich, but they can just compete like the rest of the world for these talents.
Do Japanese women WANT that place? I'm bet money they don't just like how American women don't.
The article uses the same "smart riot girrl" marketing that has been used here in Argentina to bring young woman that embraced feminism into programming.

It´s most probably a paid ad in disguise (and I can point this out because I know a big consulting firm CEO that paid local media for this kind of "articles")

Curious thing is these articles always portrait a single cool young woman in their early twenties, never a woman with kids or a woman in their 30s or older.

Sadly this is not about equality at all, it´s about the employers having a bigger workforce so that they can reduce salaries and discard the old.

Computing is an smoke and mirrors kind of market.

No mentioned that the jobs are seldom "cool" like that in real life.
Yes. Women are awesome in tech, and the field needs much more of them.

But the mass media portraying her as a rebel for coloring her hair, that's like... Tabloid stuff.

Japan is a very different society than the US or Europe, the comment on colouring hair being an incredibly rebelious thing in Japan is entirely valid. Not having black hair has lead to bullying so extreme in some situations that it has lead to suicides.
In America the saying is "The squeaky wheel gets the grease".

In Japan the equivalent is "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down".

Her dying her hair is ABSOLUTELY a large act of rebellion there.

In Japan it's still a big deal for women. Japanese value conformity and coloring your hair a bright color is a big way of sticking out.
> Yes. Women are awesome in tech, and the field needs much more of them.

Shouldn't we hire/want people in the field because they are passionate and want to be there rather than some arbitrary skin pigmentation or assigned gender?

> the mass media portraying her as a rebel for coloring her hair, that's like... Tabloid stuff.

I think you're underestimating the stigma against different hair colors in Japan. Japanese culture puts a heavy emphasis on not sticking out, to the point that even having a natural hair color that is different from the norm can be viewed as being rebellious.

https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-students-hair-color...

https://soranews24.com/2019/08/03/tokyo-public-schools-will-...

If women aren't working in Japan, what are they doing? The birth rate is way below replacement. Outside Osaka and Tokyo, the country is emptying out.
I think you're misinterpreting the article. It's not about women working in general, but women working in technology fields. Due to either explicit bias (per a couple examples in the article, girls being told that math and science was too hard for them) or systemic bias (lack of examples of women in the technology fields, no or very few women educators in STEM disciplines). Which is a very different thing than saying women aren't working, which, again, the article isn't saying.
Women are working in Japan, but structurally speaking they do not work in great jobs. i.e. many Japanese companies operate dual employment tracks with career and non-career tracks; women are hired disproportionately into non-career tracks with lower job security, promotion prospects, training and pay.

Women are substantially under-represented at both middle-management and senior level (i.e. boards); and face the second-largest pay gap vs their male peers in the OECD nations.

Japan's tax and social security systems also create penalties for dual-income households with large benefit cliffs and other similar structures so many types of part-time employment are economically discouraged.

i higly doubt a japanese salaryman can mantain 2+ people on a single wage
The situation in Japan for population is similar to that of the US. The boomer population is huge, and they had fewer children, so as they're dying out, there's less people. The difference between the US and Japan, is that immigration replaces the difference, keeping the overall population mostly the same.

Japan is difficult to emigrate to, as you need a work visa, and though knowing Japanese isn't a hard requirement for work, in most industries you won't be able to get a job without it. Becoming fluent in Japanese, with daily structured education takes around 2 years.