JAPANESE society is known and admired for a lifestyle of extreme dedication to any task. However, eventually this total devotion to one’s work can get out of control and become a problem.
A little over a year ago, 24-year-old Matsuri Takahashi died due to “karoshi” – as the Asian nation refers to deaths resulting from overwork. The young woman employee of Dentsu, Japan’s largest advertising company, committed suicide after working 20-hour days and exceeding 100 hours of overtime a month, over several months.
Shortly before the end of 2016, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced that it would prosecute the firm, the largest in the country and fifth largest in the world, for the death of its employee. The measure not only prompted the company president’s resignation, given his responsibility in the tragedy, but it also revived the debate over the number of deaths from overwork in the Asian country.
According to official reports, Dentsu breached the nation’s labor laws and is therefore legally responsible for Takahashi’s death. According to Japanese law, for a case to be classified as “karoshi,” the victim must have worked more than 100 hours of overtime in the month prior to his or her death, or 80 hours over two or more consecutive months of the past six. According to the investigations, Takahashi worked up to 105 extra hours a month.
Although the story of this young woman, who only withstood seven months of excessive work at this advertising giant, shocked Japanese society, this is not an isolated case for the country, where work-related deaths are a phenomenon of such magnitude that they were officially recognized by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare as a health risk in 1987.
To begin with, official figures reported some 200 cases per year, but in 2015 the number of victims of overwork reached 2,310, according to this institution.
According to the authorities, “The increase in the mortality rate due to health complications such as strokes or heart attacks due to overwork and stress at work is considered karoshi.”
In addition, according to information from the ministry, the sudden death of any employee who works on average more than 65 hours a week for more than a month can be classified in the same way.
In this regard, several analysts have indicated that high suicide rates and sudden deaths from heart attacks and strokes may be closely related to the grueling workloads and long hours which the Japanese are subjected to.
THE ORIGINS OF THE PROBLEM
To understand this phenomenon, which is not unique to Japan, we must go back to the postwar years. The rapid growth achieved by the land of the rising sun, which permitted the transition from a country devastated by WWII to an economic and technological power, can only be understood thanks to this culture of dedication to work.
In fact, psychological research has demonstrated that this dedication to one’s work signaled a new motivation for the men and women of a nation that was obliged to reshape itself.
In later years, when Japan’s rapid growth reached its limit and the country entered a period known as the “bubble economy”, where wages reached a maximum and the cost of living became increasingly high, the Japanese people were already working at an overwhelming pace which unleashed the public health problem faced today.
Although the government of Shinzo Abe has reaffirmed its intention to restructure the Japanese labor market and eradicate abuses, the working culture continues to demand between 60 and 70 hour weeks from Japanese workers. This, when in most Western countries working hours by law can not exceed 40 hours a week. The current situation in Japan has led to a national trauma that, according to the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, could actually be responsible for up to 10,000 deaths per year.
In order to reduce this phenomenon that is repeated daily in Japan, the state, together with certain companies, has launched a series of plans that seek to limit the number of overtime hours to a “reasonable level” and offer solutions for a better work-life balance.
Nonetheless, these contingency measures have not had the desired effect in an extremely traditional society that views devotion to one’s work as the means to contribute to the future of the nation. The question thus remains: how much work is too much?
