By James Aitchison

Once, the culture of overworking yourself to death was unique to Japan.  “Karoshi”, which literally means death by overwork, claims worker lives from heart failure, stroke, sleep deprivation and exhaustion, mental health issues and suicide — the victims having worked up to 60 or 70 hours per week or more. 

Worse, the toxic karoshi culture sees Japanese employees typically taking only half their paid annual entitlements.

As long ago as 1988, a Japanese Labour Force Survey reported that a quarter of all male employees worked over 60 hours per week (the equivalent to two and a half days).  It was common for employees to work 12 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week, year after year.  All-night, late-night and holiday work added even more stress.  Employees found themselves unable to achieve the often unrealistic goals set by companies.  Middle management was particularly vulnerable.

And when karoshi suicides (“karojisatsu”) increased, insurance companies started putting one-year exemption clauses into policies.  Workers literally had to wait a year before committing suicide so their families would receive the payout!

In 2023, 4,598 formally recognised cases of karoshi were recorded in Japan.  Overworked employees in transportation and delivery industries were most likely to die from heart and brain diseases.  Health care and social welfare workers were most likely to die from mental disorders. The unforgiving culture then registered a demographic shift in karoshi victims: with Japan’s declining birth rate, more women were entering the workforce.  Workplace sexual harassment and bullying, combined with overwork, fed anxiety, depression, and suicide.

In one such case, in the Japanese advertising firm Dentsu, 24-year-old Matsuri Takahashi jumped from her company dormitory after working 100 hours’ overtime in a single month.  The demands of her superiors had been unrelenting.  At the time, Dentsu had what was called the Ten Rules of Demon, one of which stated that “if you get the job or any project, don’t let it go, even if you die.”

In 2022, another case of karoshi suicide made world headlines.  A 26-year-old doctor Shingo Takashima suicided after working 207 hours of overtime and 100 days straight in the month leading up to his death.

Himari Semans, a young journalist with The Japan Times, points to some reasons for this tragic phenomenon.  “In Japanese life in general there’s a sense you’re working as a team, you need to be loyal to your supervisors and mentors and colleagues.  If they’re staying late, you stay late too.  Clocking off early can almost be viewed as a betrayal,” she adds.

Another factor contributing to karoshi is Japan’s aging population.  Ms Semans asks, “If there aren’t enough people working, then are we going to make the very few who are left work overtime?”  One initiative she suggests is to put companies on a karoshi blacklist.

Yusuke Kasagi, a workplace accident lawyer, pins the blame for karoshi on labour unions.  “Unions have a passive relationship with company higher-ups,” he argues.  “Japan’s economy has developed because companies and unions avoided confrontation with each other.”  According to Kasagi, a 10-year veteran in the field, he has dealt with zero cases in which labour unions protested the unfair treatment of workers.  “The compliant nature of many Japanese labour unions is due to the social normality of extreme dedication to one’s job.”  He also pointed to the common practice of workers hiding their true working hours, either by instruction or on their own accord.

Thanks to the pandemic, this deadly culture has now spread to many other countries.  The rise in remote and hybrid work and the proliferation of the gig economy have insidiously increased people’s working hours.  One conservative estimate showed that 3.1 million workers in North America, Europe and the Middle East now work an extra 48 minutes per day.

In 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Labour Organisation found that 745,000 people worldwide died in 2016 from stroke and ischemic heart disease as a direct result of chronic overwork.  In their study, chronic overwork was defined as working at least 55 hours a week. 

By contrast, the Japanese government accepts that more than 80 hours’ overtime a month puts workers at risk of karoshi.  Sadly, it made it legal to work up to 80 hours’ overtime, and even 100 hours’ overtime at employers’ discretion.

Globally, karoshi has become a stealthy killer.  A cycle of burnout can cause high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor mental health, even suppressed immune systems.  Employers lose too: low productivity, poor staff retention, absenteeism, and unplanned leave.  Even when chronically stressed employees do turn up for work, they do not function at full capacity.

In China, karoshi is called guolaosi.  Businessmen commonly work long hours and then go to nightclubs almost every night to drink heavily and entertain their clients and make contacts.

Professionals in India are among the world’s most overworked people.  According to India Today, the land of “aaram haaram hai” — it’s immoral to laze around — is now the world’s second most overworked country.  In fact, overwork is glorified; tireless work is associated with nation-building, and the concept of serving others with a sense of self-sacrifice.  While factory workers are limited by law to work a 48-hour a week and receive overtime pay at double the regular rate, office workers have no such protection.  In fact, the average office worker and those in the IT sector are forced to work overtime without overtime pay.  Adding fuel to the fire, the co-founder of Infosys, N R Narayana Murthy, recently advised young people to work 70 hours a week to boost the national economy. 

South Korea’s gwarosa refers to death by overworking.  South Korea has some of the longest working hours in the world. 

Even Sweden reported that 720 workers a year died from overwork in 2019.

Australia has a worse work-life balance than New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.  An Australia Institute survey found that full-time employees work an average 6.2 hours on top of the standard 38 hours each week.  A report titled Overworked, Overloaded and Overlooked, prepared by the union movement, highlights how understaffing and unreasonable workloads are putting immense pressure on New South Wales public sector workers.  Adding to this pressure, the government has continued capping wages below inflation, increased casual and contract employment, and forced workers to perform more unpaid overtime.  Respondents included bus drivers, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, teachers, and police, with two-thirds considering quitting their jobs or moving to states with more generous labour policies.

Last year, the Australian Government introduced “right to disconnect” laws to protect workers from forcibly having to answer phone calls and reply to emails in their private time.

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Significantly, religion has a role in overwork.  Dr Sugumar Mariappanadar, a discipline leader in human resource management at the Australian Catholic University, points to Confucianism’s “faithfulness to duty” which has fuelled China’s 9-9-6 working hour system where people work from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week.

He also pointed to the Protestant work ethic in Christian countries.  “Protestant leader John Calvin contended that followers should orient their lives around work and view labour as a calling.”  German sociologist Max Weber argued that the Protestant work ethic laid the foundations for capitalism in the West.

Culturally, Dr Mariappanadar believes we should look to France and Germany as models of work-life balance.  France legislated a 35-hour week.   The French have more personal and leisure time each day — 16.2 hours — while the Germans enjoy 15.6 hours.  “The economies in France and Germany remain productive,” he adds.  “Employers can alleviate overwork through sustainable job practices.”

Fortunately, some companies in Japan are now demonstrating proactive policies.  Toyota limited overtime to 360 hours a year (on average, 30 hours a month), and in some offices public address announcements every hour after 7 pm remind workers of the importance of rest and the need to go home.  Nissan allows remote work to make it easier for employees to care for children and elderly parents.  Some corporations have even implemented “no overtime days”, when employees are required to leave offices promptly at 5.30pm.  However, in 2017, when the Japanese Government launched “Premium Fridays”, asking companies to allow workers to leave at 3 pm on the last Friday of every month, 45% of companies reported they had no plans to implement the scheme.

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Karoshi is a potentially fatal syndrome.  It is not only a clinical disease but a social one.  However, in most countries, karoshi is not recognised as a medical diagnosis.

But there are solutions for all of us.

Changing the way work is done, working smarter not longer, and working in companies that take care of employees as they do other valuable assets.  

Investing in hobbies, prioritising friends and a social life, and taking regular short breaks to fight burnout.   

Above all, never lose sight of your life goals.  Dying from overwork is not one of them.