In this seminar Professor Yukiko Abe will discuss her paper, co-authored by Naomi Kodama and Beata Javorcik, on gender outcomes in foreign and domestic firms in Japan using various statistical sources. Three types of firms are compared: greenfield foreign affiliates set up as new establishments; foreign affiliates established through acquisition of an existing Japanese firm; and Japanese firms. The data indicate that the proportion of females among workers, managers, directors and board members is higher, and the gender wage gap is smaller, in greenfield foreign affiliates than in Japanese firms. Gender outcomes differ little between foreign affiliates established through acquisitions and Japanese firms. Additional analysis combining propensity score matching with a difference-in-differences approach finds no causal effect of foreign acquisitions in improving gender outcomes. These patterns are in line with the view that it is much harder to transplant the corporate culture to an existing establishment than to a newly set-up organisation.

Professor Yukiko Abe is Professor of Economics at Hokkaido University. Her main research interest are labour economics, recently focusing on the gender gap in Japan and other countries, the long-term impact of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in Japan, and regional variations in women’s labour force participation.

This seminar is presented by the Australia-Japan Research Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.