Few Women in the Room at BOJ Meetings Runs Counter to Abe Pledge
- Minutes of sessions show men also dominate at BOK, ECB and BOE
- Federal Reserve has higher number of women participants
Sayuri Shirai.
Photographer: Junko Kimura/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Amid the details of monetary policy votes, one fact emerges from the records of recent meetings at major central banks including the Bank of Japan: Few women are in the room.
According to the minutes of the BOJ’s policy meeting Jan. 28 and 29, only one woman -- board member Sayuri Shirai, who is leaving after this month -- was among 29 attendees, including the governor, board members and participants from the government. At that meeting, the central bank of the world’s third-largest economy took the radical step of adopting a negative interest rate. The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has made advancement of women a tenet of his prescription for reviving Japan’s economy.