Japan has ranked 104th out of 190 economies in the Word Bank's annual survey on women's economic opportunities. The country is also at the bottom among the 38 OECD members.
The World Bank released its latest report on Thursday. The survey evaluates how much progress has been made in laws and regulations to eliminate economic gender disparities based in eight areas, including pay, entrepreneurship, marriage and parenthood.
The top 14 countries on the list were mostly European and included Belgium, Denmark and France. Canada was also among them.
Japan's low ranking is attributed to the absence of laws requiring that men and women receive equal pay for equal work. The country also has no legislation to punish sexual harassment in the workplace.
The report points out nearly 2.4 billion working women around the world lack the same legal rights as men. It urges countries to take wide-ranging actions to level the playing field for women.