The country where people work themselves to Death
Death from overwork’ is so common in Japan there’s even a word for it. But is it physically possible?
he Japanese have a knack for inventing words – and there are some that every self-respecting office worker should have in their vocabulary. There’s arigata-meiwaku: when someone does you a favour that you didn’t ask them to – which actually caused you massive inconvenience – but you’re socially obliged to thank them anyway. Or how about majime: an earnest, dependable colleague who can get things done without causing any drama.
he Japanese have a knack for inventing words – and there are some that every self-respecting office worker should have in their vocabulary. There’s arigata-meiwaku: when someone does you a favour that you didn’t ask them to – which actually caused you massive inconvenience – but you’re socially obliged to thank them anyway. Or how about majime: an earnest, dependable colleague who can get things done without causing any drama.
But there’s one uniquely Japanese term you don’t want to relate to: karoshi, which translates as “death by overwork”.
Reports of the nation’s corporate breadwinners, known as “salarymen”, dropping dead from overwork have been making headlines for decades.
But is it just urban legend?
Well, no. The social phenomenon was first recognised in 1987, when the health ministry began logging cases after the sudden deaths of a string of high-flying executives.
So widespread is the issue, that in Japan, if a death is judged karoshi, the victim’s family receives compensation from the government of around $20,000 per year and company payouts of up to $1.6 million.
Initially, the government was documenting a couple of hundred cases every year. But by 2015, claims had risen to a record high of 2,310, according to a report by the Japanese Labour Ministry. This may be the tip of the iceberg. According to the National Defence Council for Victims of Karoshi, the true figure may be as high as 10,000 – roughly the same number of people killed each year by traffic.
But can you really die from overwork? Or is it just a case of old age and undiagnosed medical conditions? In an increasingly well-connected world, where technology keeps us in the loop 24-7, work hours are creeping up. Could karoshi be going on unrecognised elsewhere?
‘Death from overwork’
A typical case of karoshi goes something like this. Kenji Hamada was an employee at a Tokyo-based security company, with a devoted young wife and formidable work ethic. His typical week involved 15-hour days and a gruelling four-hour commute. Then one day he was found slumped over his desk; his colleagues assumed he was asleep. When he hadn’t moved several hours later, they realised he was dead. He haddied of a heart attack at the age of 42.
Though Hamada died in 2009, karoshi claimed its first victim 40 years earlier – when a healthy 29-year old suffered a stroke after pulling punishing shifts in the shipping department of the nation’s largest newspaper.
“After the defeat of the Second World War, the Japanese worked the longest hours in the world by far – they were workaholics of the highest order,” says Cary Cooper, a stress expert at Lancaster University.
In the post-war era
, work provided men with a renewed sense of purpose; workers were not just financially – but psychologically – motivated. Businesses welcomed this new order and beganfunding labour unions, culture groups and company housing, transportation, recreation facilities, health clinics and childcare centres. Before long, work was the central life interest.
Decades later, in the mid-1980s, it took a dark turn. Abnormalities in the country’s economic system fuelled a rapid and unsustainable escalation in the prices of shares and real estate. The resulting economic growth spurt, known as the “bubble economy”, pushed Japan’s salarymen to their limits.
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