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2021/12/25
Japan is known as a country that prizes and exemplifies hard-working culture. Nearly one-quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month, according to a 2016 government survey. Also, a study conducted by Expedia found that 63 percent of Japanese respondents felt guilty for taking paid leave. And illegal unpaid overtime highly common in Japan.
#Long work hours don’t guarantee high productivity
Japan has the lowest productivity among G-7 nations, according to data from OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators.
#‘Death by overwork’
The Japanese vocabulary “karoshi” means “death by overwork” in Japanese. Countless employees suffer from chronic depression caused because of overwork daily routine.
#Work-life balance policy
Nowadays, Japanese government makes it mandatory to take at least five vacation days per year. In 2016, a new holiday “Mountain Day” come into being, bringing Japan’s number of annual public holidays to 16.
In 2017, Japanese government launched an initiative called Premium Fridays, in which encouraged the companies to allow their employees to leave at 3 p.m. on the last Friday of the month. Nevertheless, a study found that less than 4 percent of employees in Japan left earlier on the first Premium Friday. Evidently, employees sense the pressured from the supervisors and their colleagues
＃“karoshi”（日文：過労死，中文：過勞死）
In 2013, 31-year-old journalist Miwa Sado logged 159 hours of overtime in one month at the news network NHK, and she died of heart failure.
And in 2015, a 24-year-old employee of Japanese advertising behemoth Dentsu commit suicide in the company’s dorm room and she was reported working more than 100 hours in a month. After all, the ad firm Dentsu only paid $5,000 fine after an employee killed herself from overwork.
How Japan shape an oppressive and overbearing work culture? In Japan’s postwar era, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida enlisted major corporations to offer employees lifelong job security and they demand the workers repay with loyalty. Employees who work long hours were rewarded.
According to Nippon, a Japanese news agency, corporations try to circumvent the restrictions the Japanese government has placed on working hours by encouraging employees to falsify the numbers of overtime.
Accordingly, employees routinely work over 100 hours of overtime a month in Japan. “I Will Not Work Overtime, Period!” features a leading lady , Yui Higashiyama, who fights hard for her rights to off work on time.
The TV show “I Will Not Work Overtime, Period!” aims to challenge the controversial work ethic in Japan. Most Japanese employees have difficulties in achieving work-life balance. The TV show’s creators say they know the problem well.
The show’s producers have their life stories to share. Kasumi Yao hasn’t taken a vacation in 12 years. Kaeruko Akeno, being the creator of the novel, said that social aura permeated other parts of Japanese life. When she left her job to become a writer, she found herself working virtually nonstop. She was writing right up to the point when she was taken into the delivery room. Ultimately, her body shut down and it took her two years to fully recover.
“I was extremely conscious that taking a break meant slacking off. It took such a long time for me to accept the fact that it’s O.K. to not work on weekends or on weekday nights” said Kaeruko Akeno. Ms. Akeno is still working hard. All she wanted is to work a little less and enjoy her life a little more. she said, “I talk about my experience only because I feel that I have to.”
The leading lady determines to leave work at 6 p.m. sharp, which demonstrate the issue that most Japanese employees dare not to leave the office on time. Being a project manager, she focuses on productivity rather than the working hours. And she insists to get out of the office as she gets her job done. She aims to fight for work-life balance.
In Episode 9, her team faces an impossible deadline and then she puts aside her principle and declares, “I will work overtime!” In the novel, the decision to work overtime turns out to be a bad decision. She becomes addicted to work, ends up in the hospital and her BF cheats on her because she fails to accompany him after work.
The leading lady concludes that “People can’t be truly happy if they are not both physically and mentally healthy.”
In 2017, over a quarter of the country’s full-time employees worked more than 49 hours a week averagely, according to a government report, effectively working six out of seven days. There should be a limit to the dedication to the workplace. In 2017, government data showed, overwork claimed 190 lives by means of physical exhaustion, heart attacks, or even suicides and the numbers were always high over the last decade.
What’s the value of work overtime? Is it a commonplace thing for Japanese companies to exploit their employees?
The work ethic in Japan presses the employees to the limit and working excessive hours is the norm in Japan. Some employees work added hours for extra salary or with the purpose to please their supervisor or boss. Ironically, promotions often depend more on working hours rather than work productivity. The Japanese government should take measures to change cultural norms in the workplace and they did. In Japan, a new law took effect limiting overtime to no more than 45 hours a month and 360 hours per year in April.
The TV show unveils another common issue at the workplace that working mothers face discrimination in the workplace. They get more pressure to prove their productivity at work and they also have difficulty balancing their family demands. The TV show discloses the workplace problems which are currently happening in Japan, from low wages to the low birthrate.
In the early 2000s, Japan’s economy was in a deep slowdown, and work was hard to find. Many people ended up taking temp jobs or being unemployed. People who came out of campus at the time suffer from intense insecurities about employment. They are dread that they might fail to find themselves a place in the workplace. Generally, those who fail to secure a position at the workplace suffer from social prejudice, self-doubt and even self-loathing.
The government and younger generations are pushing for shorter workdays, while the older employees do not get comfortable with the idea of working a 40-hour week. It’s true. Some people have great difficulty in altering their thinking and life values.
What press us to abuse our body so hard? There’s overwhelming social pressure and fear, fear of losing the chance, fear of not good enough and the pressure of not pressing ourselves to the limit. Do we suffer from self-blaming if we do not press ourselves to the limit?
The new “Work Style Reform Legislation” was passed in 2018 and makes significant revisions to Japan’s labor laws. Most of the amendments take effect in 2019. Currently, there is an administrative guideline that sets a maximum limit on overtime working hours.
Bullying in the workplace is common in Japan, where the relationships between superiors and subordinates. are essentially hierarchical.
Workplace bullying is known as pawa hara (power harassment) in Japan, a term coined in 2003 by a Japanese social psychologist. And mata hara refers to maternity harassment, seku hara refers to sexual harassment, and aka hara refers to academic or campus harassment.
I would say, an unhealthy working environment does impede the country’s economic growth and efficiency. It’s the government’s obligation to strengthen measures against power harassment in workplaces.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare also launched a website (link in Japanese) in 2015 and they classify harassment into six different categories: physical abuse, mental or emotional abuse, deliberately isolating an individual in the workplace, making an employee overworking, giving an employee unreasonable workload which is far above their skill level, and infringement of privacy by asking personal questions which are not pertinent to the job.
How I survived workplace bullying | Sherry Benson-Podolchuk | TEDxWinnipeg
#strategies to combat overwork
# reduce overtime work
#work-life balance reforms
What The Japanese Think of Bullying | ASIAN BOSS
Japanese working mothers have come a long way in demanding gender equality, but the change is slow and the SOS signs are being ignored by the mainstream public.
Tokyo Medical University announces that they want to limit the number of female applicants, using the excuse that female doctors “tend to take long absences or quit their job after marrying or giving birth.” Since 2010, the university’s officials have been shamefully cutting scores of entrance exams to limit women’s admission rate to around 25-30 percent each year. And the Admission fee is costly, which costs each individual 282,000 yen. Shame on them.
The plight of Japanese working women and working mothers is assured. Since Japan’s birth rate is dropping, the Japanese government encouraged women to work more and bear more children, but there should be concrete plans of how to create a work culture that support the working mothers.
When it comes to working mothers in Japan, they have to deal with household, pregnancy and child-raising issues. And only around 3 percent of fathers take paternity leave in Japan.
Most Japanese women are well-educated that 59 percent of women in the 25-to-34 age group have college degrees versus 52 percent of men. However, Japan places a great value on the role of the stay-at-home wife and stay-at-home mother. Current taxation and social insurance system discourage women from joining the workforce. Married women face two choices, stay home, or take part-time jobs at best. The reality is that the current taxation system in Japan benefited the older generation and loyal voters for decades.
The social position and plight of Japanese women
Most people might agree that Japanese women are not regarded with as much respect as they are in the West. Changes are taking place and Japanese women certainly have a tougher battle fighting for their rights and respect. Japanese Women’s values were limited to household affairs. But time has changed.
It’s weird that a married Japanese man might not be blamed for flirt openly with office ladies. Even today, Japanese women need their husband’s permission to file for divorce and they feel ashamed if they fail to keep a marriage.
Do Japanese men are superior to Japanese women? It is said that Japanese men are the first out of elevators and they get served first in restaurants than women. That’s not what I define a gentleman.
Historically, Japanse women have been educated that strong personalities are not permitted. And they were taught that women should behave femininely by being gentle, obedient and faithful.
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