The reputation of hardworking people obsessed with the Japanese is not a myth. Many employees feel guilty when they go on vacation for leaving their company, fearing that they will be perceived as "those who rest and let others do their jobs."
Last update: December 27, 2019
On Christmas Day 2015, 24-year-old woman Matsuri Takahashi jumped out of her apartment window. She had been hired by global advertising giant Dentsu in April of the same year. The umpteenth victim of karoshi, "death from overwork", recognized by the Japanese authorities as an accident at work since 1989.
On his Twitter account, Matsuri wrote that he slept only "two hours a night" and that he worked 20 hours a day. She also wrote: "My eyes are tired and my heart is dead" or "I think I would be happier if you killed me now."
Although these dramatic cases appear to us somewhat distant and typical of other cultures, karoshi is nothing more than a brutal reflection of how far the capitalist mentality can go, which mixes meritocracy with the most grueling competition to be (or appear) / make us be (appear) more worthy to occupy a place in this world.
Karoshi: Work in Japan is a matter of honor
A Japanese employee works an average of 2.070 hours per year. Overwork is the cause of death of about 200 people a year, from heart attack, stroke or suicide. There are also several serious health problems resulting from non-stop work.
This conception of work is one of the legacies of the golden age of the Japanese economy of the 80s. Hideo Hasegawa, university professor and former Toshiba executive, expresses it perfectly: «When you are in charge of a project, you have to carry it out under any conditions. It doesn't matter how many hours you have to work. Otherwise, it's unprofessional. '
In the 80s, Japanese advertising extolled employee self-denial with a motto: "Are you ready to fight 24 hours a day?"
The reputation of hardworking people obsessed with the Japanese is not a myth. Many employees feel guilty when they go on vacation for leaving their company, fearing that they will be perceived as "those who rest and let others do their jobs."
Some workers avoid going home too early for fear of what neighbors or relatives might think about their alleged lack of seriousness. Also, people tend to hang out with colleagues to promote corporate culture. However, this hard work isn't all that profitable. Indeed, Japanese productivity is often described as low by outside observers who see in this part of the lack of competitiveness of the companies of the archipelago.
In the long term, this way of working is not only not competitive in commercial terms, but also represents a risk to the health of the population, which could cause the collapse of medical resources. Depression and suicide are already the main challenges facing a society obsessed with accumulating overtime.
How does a person get to karoshi?
The problem is that burnout remains a "vague concept" which, for the moment, does not appear in any of the main international classifications of mental disorders. An individual can be hospitalized for several symptoms related to burnout: extreme fatigue, nervous exhaustion or depersonalization with insensitivity to others, without these symptoms referring to a clinical picture of karoshi.
There is no clear diagnosis for these symptoms or parameters to establish whether a limit has been reached beyond which work poses a health risk. This lack of awareness of mental health, increasingly abusive professional practices and a labor market transformed by technology lead to overcoming all limits of dedication to work.
The fear of unemployment and of staying out of the system leads people to believe that working at any time is a valid alternative, when in reality cognitive abilities are reduced and the consequences for health can become irreversible; and with the increasing risk of falling into addictions of all kinds.
The Karoshi, therefore, resembles an unbearable "chronic stress", for which the subject is no longer able to resist and falls into depression. The term burnout, however, is more socially accepted, as extreme exhaustion is considered almost a "title of honor", while depression is clearly less "honorable": it is perceived as a form of weakness.
But this phenomenon is not limited to Japan. The Americans even gave it a name: workalcoholism. In Spain, there are still few studies in question, therefore it is not possible to provide a reliable estimate. In Switzerland, on the other hand, one in seven active people admits to having been diagnosed with depression.
Measures to combat karoshi
To combat this phenomenon, it is necessary to change mentality. To begin, Japanese entrepreneurs must abandon the false idea that long shifts are essential. They should learn from European countries like Germany, France or Sweden and move to a business model that promotes shorter work days.
The Japanese government is already taking action through legal reforms and more scrupulous administrative oversight, correctly using state authority to end grueling shifts. It approved a reform that allows companies not to assign overtime to workers who earn more than 80.000 euros a year, as well as more subject to exhaustion.
The state also intends to impose a minimum of 5 days of vacation on Japanese employees to counter the harms of overwork on corporate health and productivity. In the Land of the Rising Sun, workers with at least six and a half years of seniority enjoy 20 days of paid vacation per year. However, they use less than half of them.
The new law is not applicable to part-time employees, but only to employees who are entitled to at least 10 days of paid annual leave. It applies in the event that there is a real risk to health, accident at work or death due to fatigue.
Conclusions
The population should also be an active part of the end of working hours that are too long making their voices heard in front of employers and the government and claiming more sustainable working conditions that would relieve them of the pressure.
As citizens, it is equally necessary to reflect and evaluate whether the excessive demand for services is not promoting, in spite of ourselves, the tightening of the working conditions of other workers.
