V+S+D :)

Flash Baron requested... - Work and personal life balance in Japan. - Thank you! :)

This is a Dark Side of Japan... - Karoshi (過労死, Karōshi)  :(

While there is an increasing emphasis in work-life balance in Western culture, “karoshi” is an increasingly serious problem in Japan, which is nothing more than when people specifically die from too much work.

While in the West there are more and more books and articles on how to work effectively to have time for privacy and relaxation in addition to work, in Japan it is a completely unknown concept - not like karoshi.

The phenomenon is taking on ever rougher proportions, so much so that now hundreds and thousands of Japanese are literally working to their deaths. Kiyotaka Serizawa, 34, for example, died in July last year of working 90 hours a week in the last period of his life.

90 hours is rough but not at all glaring in Japan, where long working days (or attendance at mandatory, work-related events that complement them) are the norm.

It all started in the 1970s, when, due to relatively low wages, workers tried to squeeze as much out of the system as possible. Then in the eighties came the explosion (then Japan became the second largest economy in the world) and everyone worked like crazy.

Even when balloons burst in the 1990s and companies were forced to reorganize themselves, leading to the dismissal of many people - those who remained, in turn, were able to do anything not to send them.

All of this has led to the fact that nowadays it is no longer a particularly outstanding performance if someone works 12 hours a day.
“In a Japanese workplace, overtime is as basic as part of normal working hours. No one is forcing it, but at the same time everyone feels obligated, ”
While official working hours are 40 hours a week, many people work much more than that, fearing that otherwise it will affect their annual assessment. In addition, overtime (as “voluntary”) is not usually paid by companies.

All of this has led to karoshi (which can be just as much a heart attack caused by an overload as a suicide due to exhaustion) now one of the recognized causes of death. Only last year, 189 deaths were officially listed here, but experts say the real number is more in the thousands.

Although public opinion is that karoshi is basically a problem that affects men, experts say more and more women are affected, and in their case, we can almost always talk about suicide. What’s very rude is that the ladies are also amazingly young, with many still in their twenties when they can’t stand the pressure anymore.

Relatives of those who die in work overcrowding are entitled to compensation, and the number of such cases reached a new record of 2,310 in the year before March. Another issue is that only one in three applications is judged positively.

Although the problem has been going on for decades, the government has only adopted a program to combat karoshi for a year and a half. Part of this is to reduce the proportion of workers who work at least 60 hours a week from the current 8-9 percent to 5 percent by 2020. KAROSHI Hotline was launched in 1988.

The government is also trying to somehow persuade workers to take their paid leave. While in Japan, on average, an employee has 20 days, there are hardly any people who would take even half of it because they see freedom as negligence, a lack of commitment.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that while in, say, Europe, people are smoothly changing jobs if they don’t feel well for some reason or a better offer comes up, in Japan most people work their lives in one place.

If that weren’t enough, Japan’s population will age rapidly, if it doesn’t change, by 2050, the proportion of workers could fall by as much as a quarter, which will put further pressure on the active.

It very much looks like you cant get rid of karoshi on your own, you have to change the whole Japanese corporate and work culture so that people can relax more and spend more time with their families.

There will be no easy procession.