Looking back at her university years in the early 1980s when Japanese companies could openly discriminate against women in recruitment, Keiko Honda now feels gender equality in Japan has come a long way.

Back then, women were expected to assist the male workforce and quit once they married. These expectations encouraged girls to enroll in two-year junior colleges rather than attend four-year universities. As a university student, Honda was a minority.

"It was strategically a disadvantage for women to go to a university," Honda, who is now executive vice president and CEO of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, an arm of the World Bank group, said during the 22nd International Conference for Women in Business held Sunday in Tokyo.