JAPAN

Executive-Employee Pay Gap Narrows: The salary difference between Japanese senior managers and new employees--already considered low among industrialized countries--has shrunk further. A Labor Ministry study found the typical department chief of a Japanese company with more than 100 employees is 51 years old and makes 3.14 times as much as employees aged 20 to 24. The study, conducted in June, 1992, found the figure was 3.22 times in 1991 and 3.34 times in 1987. Top executives at major U.S. corporations received an average of 53 times the pay of the company’s work force, according to a 1991 study by the University of California. That study put Japanese managers’ average pay at 17 times that of workers.