Changes in the Focus of Shiseido Company’s Women’s Work Policy Since the 1990s

Since the 1990s, the focus of Shiseido Company’s work policy for women, one of Japan’s leading women-friendly companies, has gone through three phases of change. In the first phase, from the 1990s, the focus was on guaranteeing women’s legal childcare leave time; In the second phase, from 2000 to 2009, the focus was on realizing women’s balance between working and raising children; And in the third phase, from 2010 to the present, the focus of the work policy has shifted to the cultivation of women’s management and the development of women’s career potentials. These three phases reflect the changes in women’s consciousness in Japanese society, but the gender division of labor in which “men are breadwinners; Women are homemakers” has not yet been fundamentally changed, and there is still a long way to go before equality between men and women in the workplace can be realized.