Only 20% in Japan Wanted to Manage, Last of 18 in 2022

The promotion you are holding out as a reward in Japan is one most of your staff don't want. Head offices tend to assume that every strong performer is waiting for a management title. In 2022 Persol Research Institute asked non-managers in 18 countries and regions whether they wanted to become a manager at their current company. In Japan 19.8% said yes, the lowest of the 18. The average was 58.6%.

Who is inside the 19.8%

People working in three Japanese metropolitan areas who were not managers at the time, and who answered "agree" or "somewhat agree" when asked if they wanted to be one. The denominator is 691 people.

The source is Persol Research Institute's グローバル就業実態・成長意識調査 (2022), a global survey of working conditions and attitudes to growth. I could not find an official English title. It was an online survey run from 10 February to 14 March 2022 and published that November. About 1,000 people answered in each of 18 countries and regions, 18,223 in total. Respondents were 20 to 69, employed, and resident in the country for at least three years. Only major cities were covered: Tokyo, Osaka and Aichi for Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou for China.

The question was "Do you feel you want to become a manager at your current company?" on a five-point scale, and the reported figure is the top two points combined. It was put to rank-and-file employees only: 8,043 across all markets, 691 in Japan, 553 in China.

Several things should make you discount the number a little. The respondents are online panel members in big cities, and the report itself notes that they skew highly educated and earn more than national averages. The question says "at your current company", so someone who wants to manage somewhere else is not counted. Japanese respondents also drift to the middle of five-point scales, which I wrote about in In Japan, "neither agree nor disagree" is an answer, so a top-two count works against Japan. And sample sizes vary. India's is 126.

The conclusion survives the discounts. The same institute ran a 14-market version in 2019. Japan was lowest there too, at around 20%. As of November 2026 I have not found a newer international comparison on this question, so the 2022 edition is the latest one I can cite.

How far behind is Japan?

A long way. Japan's 19.8% is a third of the 18-market average of 58.6%. The second-lowest market, Australia, is at 38.0%, almost double Japan.

At the top are India at 90.5%, Vietnam at 87.8%, the Philippines at 80.6% and China at 78.8%. South Korea is at 61.7%, the United States 54.5%, Taiwan 49.9%, Germany 45.1% and Singapore 43.7%.

19.8% of non-managers in Japan want to be managers, a third of the 18-market average

Share who want to become a manager at their current company (%, top two of five points). Base: rank-and-file employees in each market. Persol Research Institute, global working conditions and growth survey (2022); major cities in 18 countries and regions; employed people aged 20 to 69. Nine of the rows are shown

• India
  90.5%
• Vietnam
  87.8%
• China
  78.8%
• South Korea
  61.7%
• 18-market average
  58.6%
• United States
  54.5%
• Germany
  45.1%
• Australiasecond lowest
  38.0%
• Japanlowest
  19.8%

In Japan a management post is an appointment most people would prefer to skip. Ask before you promote.

Inside Japan, 27.0% of men and 13.8% of women said yes. By age it was 33.7% of people in their twenties, 25.5% in their thirties, 17.4% in their forties and 8.0% in their fifties. The report notes that Japan is far below other markets in every age group, and that even its highest group, the twenties, reaches only 33.7% against a 69.0% average for that age.

The thirties and forties are the rows to watch. That is roughly when Japanese companies promote people to section chief (kacho). Among people of that age who are not yet managers, between one in four and one in six want the job.

Why don't they want it?

More responsibility, more work, and not much more money. Japan's own statistics have a number for each.

The labor ministry's 2018 white paper on the labor economy retabulated a survey of regular employees run that year by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training. Among people with no title or at subsection chief (kakaricho) and senior staff level, 61.1% did not want to be promoted into management and 38.9% did. That 38.9% is higher than Persol's 19.8% because the two surveys ask different people in different ways. One covers regular employees nationwide, the other covers workers in three metropolitan areas. The two figures can't be ranked against each other.

The top reason for not wanting promotion, with multiple answers allowed, was "the responsibility gets heavier" at 71.3%. Next came more work and longer hours, wanting to keep doing the current job, and no confidence in managing subordinates. Read off the chart, those sit between 57% and 66%. The data is from 2018, so it is eight years old.

On money, the National Personnel Authority's 2025 survey of private-sector pay is blunt. At companies with 100 or more employees, an administrative kakaricho who becomes a kacho goes from ¥502,000 to ¥633,000 a month including overtime, a 26% rise. An engineering kakaricho goes from ¥543,000 to ¥641,000, or 18%. Overtime pay largely stops at kacho, which cuts a piece off the step.

One more level of responsibility for about a fifth more pay. A kakaricho watches their own kacho every day, and can do that sum without help.

What this means if you need middle managers in Japan

You are working with a small pool and a weak incentive.

Take internal promotion first. Head office assumes the best performer wants to move up and that the kacho title is recognition. On the numbers above, four in five non-managers in Japan did not say they want it. Appointing without asking is a bet. Performing well and being suited to lead are separate things anyway, which I took apart in Don't promote your best salesperson to country manager.

Then there is how head office reads a refusal. Where four in five people want to manage, someone who turns down a promotion looks unambitious and pays for it in the next review. In Japan turning it down is the majority position. Mark people down for it and you have marked down most of the team.

External hiring draws on an even smaller pool. With so few people wanting the job, the middle managers available on the market are mostly people who already hold the post somewhere else. The labor ministry's 2025 wage survey puts the average sitting kacho at 49.5. More than half of managerial job moves never go through an open posting, as the breakdown by occupation in How People in Japan Actually Find Jobs shows. A brief that asks for someone around 35 who has led a team and wants to keep leading one gets smaller with every condition.

What is left is changing the post so that people will take it. My view is that managing people should stop being a status and become a duty with a term. Grade belongs to the person. Managing earns a fixed allowance. When the term ends the allowance stops, the grade and base pay stay, and the person can go back to specialist work. The mechanics are in Three-track pay and Manager and Specialist Tracks in Japan Need One Grade Scale.

I don't think the 19.8% says much about ambition in Japan. People there are responding sensibly to the terms they see on offer. A company that wants more of them to say yes has to change those terms and write them down: where the responsibility stops, how long the post lasts, and what it pays.

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