A dwindling workforce — yet another problem besides a low birthrate and an ageing society — that Japan has to deal with. Prime Minister Abe’s answer is "womenomics": a campaign to raise the female employment rate from 68% to 73% by 2020. A secondary goal is rapid promotion of women into management roles by 2020, so that a third of all leadership positions will be filled by women.

But the construction industry proves to be one of the most extreme cases: only about 3% of workers are female.

"Japan’s construction industry still rejects the idea of women actually working on the ground," says Junko Komorita, chief executive of Zm’ken, a small contractor in southwestern Japan. "There are still plenty of men who don’t want to take orders from women."  Her quote has been shared by multiple Japanese and foreign media outlets as summing up the reality.

Are things going to change?

A special program for the construction industry exists, called Kensetsu Komachi, which can be translated to “builder belles”.

Backed by the Japan Federation of Construction Contractors, the joint action plan aims to double the number of female technical experts and skilled workers in the industry to 200,000 by 2019. A pink-washed website provides information for women in different positions in the construction industry, complete with cartoons of cute construction girls working on a site decorated with hearts and flowers.

This doesn’t target the real issues many lament: construction workers often spend long hours at work, even on the weekend, and anyone wanting to climb to a managerial position must be willing to accept transfers to a different part of the country at a moment's notice.

It also doesn’t pair well with the culture issue of Japan, that despite around 70% of women being active in the workforce, they are still expected to bear the brunt of household chores and childcare with few offers for support.

Additionally, a recent New York Times article shines a light on what is happening on the ground: Japanese female engineers faced with male workers refusing to follow their orders or clients that bar them from inspecting sites, complaining that a woman has been sent and demanding a man instead.

Frequently, engineers or other skilled female workers will find themselves to be the only woman around, even on mega-sites where hundreds of people work. The Kensetsu Komachi campaign that has been running since 2015 has started to provide female-only portable toilets and change rooms, but much to the chagrin of workers, these are sometimes adorned with flowers and pink decorations, glossing over the root issues. Since its inception, the campaign has managed to raise the number of females on site by about 14% — far from its goal to double it.

Slow progress

There are also other initiatives to level the playing field for women and men with a passion for construction. Sekisui House, one of Japan’s major homebuilders, has a "Women’s College" program, geared at female employees to train them for managerial positions. The program is developed and managed by a female first-class registered architect.

By now, many of the large construction companies in Japan like Shimizu offer parental leave, more family-friendly work hours and company-funded, subsidised child care. Most of the staff on the ground are, however, not employed by a big firm, but one of the thousands of general contractors all over Japan that execute contracts from large corporations.

Some of these have followed suit and the Takenaka Corporation notably added a children’s waiting room next to one of their construction sites that proved popular with male and female workers alike.

Change is underway, stemming from both top-down and bottom-up initiatives. Things are, however, moving slowly, maybe even more so from a Western perspective that emphasises speed more than Japan’s kaizen approach to things.

While many Japanese men are still getting comfortable with the sight of a woman wearing a helmet and working on site, female star architect Zaha Hadid first won the bid for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Stadium but was then later replaced with a male Japanese architect. Two years of planning went into her project before she was suddenly cut in favour of a cheaper, but noticeably similar design. 

By Mareike Dornhege

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