Nomura Asset Management launched a new product designed to invest in how Japanese corporations treat women.
Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the Japanese government has tried to increase women’s participation and promotion in the business world. Now Nomura Asset Management is upping the ante.
The Tokyo-based fund manager unveiled an exchange traded fund to track the performance of the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Select Index. The unique index is a stock price gauge developed by MSCI made up of leading Japanese companies that promote gender diversity.
Snails Pace
Nomura's move came after the Bank of Japan (in Japanese), added the MSCI index to the list eligible for investment under its exchange-traded fund purchase program.
Prominent among the third arrows of «Abenomics» was addressing the low female labor participation rate in Japan, one of the lowest among the developed world.
Bringing women into the work force is recognized as a way to plug the labor shortage. Male dominated Japanese corporates however have been slow to respond if at all.
