Demand isn't factor holding women back from joining boards

Tokyo

SAKIE Fukushima remembers the novelty of being the only woman on Korn/Ferry International's board of directors, which she joined in 1995. Ditto when she joined the Sony Corp, Kao Corp and Benesse Corp boards years later.

Even now, three years after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made increasing women's participation in the workplace a tenet of his prescription for reviving Japan's fortunes, the proportion of females on Japanese boards has hardly budged - at around the lowest in the developed world.