Japan: high salaries, but the price is karoshi and hikikomori
Triple salaries and cheap housing, but also karoshi, hikikomori and extreme social pressure. The debate over whether Japan is a work paradise or a hell re
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Japan: high salaries, but the price is karoshi and hikikomori
The word 'karoshi' exists in Japanese because death from overwork is a statistical reality, not an urban legend. While Spain debates whether a 40-hour week is too much, in Japan employees can rack up unpaid overtime until they drop dead. And all of it under a social pressure that makes after-work drinks with the bosses mandatory. But it's not all bad: according to defenders of the Japanese model, salaries are triple those in Spain, housing is cheaper and street crime is almost non-existent. Is the trade-off worth it?
Karoshi: the word Spain doesn't have
Karoshi is not an abstract concept: since the 1980s, Japan has recorded hundreds of cases a year of workers dying from heart attacks, strokes or suicides directly linked to exhausting working hours. A typical example: getting up at 5 a.m., a packed train, ten hours of work plus two unpaid 'courtesy' hours, and then the nomikai (mandatory dinner with colleagues). You get home close to midnight, the kids are already asleep, and the next day it starts all over again.
The social pressure is fierce. Skipping after-work drinks is seen as a lack of team spirit, and taking sick leave is frowned upon. Anyone who complains is branded as weak. The result: a culture that normalizes working yourself to death.
Triple salaries, but at what social cost?
Against this picture, some point out that average salaries in Japan are triple those in Spain, that food is cheaper and housing, comparatively, more affordable. Moreover, the cleanliness and education of Japanese society are enviable. However, that paradise has cracks: there is also talk of youth prostitution, drunks in bars, gambling venues and a growing influx of immigrants, which breaks the myth of homogeneity.
The debate pits two visions against each other: those who look at the economic balance and those who focus on the human cost. The data don't lie: Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, especially among middle-aged men, and the hikikomori phenomenon (young people who shut themselves in their rooms for years) affects more than half a million people.
Hikikomori: the flip side of career success
Hikikomori is the other side of the coin. If karoshi kills those who endure, hikikomori traps those who cannot stand the pressure. They are young people, usually male, who drop out of school or work and isolate themselves in their rooms, sometimes for decades. Their families, ashamed, hide the problem. In a society that values productivity above all else, failure has no place.
This phenomenon has no equivalent in Spain, where the 'nini' culture (neither studying nor working) exists but without the same stigma. In Japan, being a hikikomori is a family disgrace that is hidden away. And experts warn that the numbers are growing.
The question that remains in the air: would you prefer a triple salary at the cost of living to work? Because in Japan, the answer seems clear: you work until you die or you hide until you disappear. Here, at least, you can complain.
Related discussions in the forum
The word 'karoshi' exists in Japanese because death from overwork is a statistical reality, not an urban legend. While Spain debates whether a 40-hour week is too much, in Japan employees can rack up unpaid overtime until they drop dead. And all of it under a social pressure that makes after-work drinks with the bosses mandatory. But it's not all bad: according to defenders of the Japanese model, salaries are triple those in Spain, housing is cheaper and street crime is almost non-existent. Is the trade-off worth it?
Karoshi: the word Spain doesn't have
Karoshi is not an abstract concept: since the 1980s, Japan has recorded hundreds of cases a year of workers dying from heart attacks, strokes or suicides directly linked to exhausting working hours. A typical example: getting up at 5 a.m., a packed train, ten hours of work plus two unpaid 'courtesy' hours, and then the nomikai (mandatory dinner with colleagues). You get home close to midnight, the kids are already asleep, and the next day it starts all over again.
The social pressure is fierce. Skipping after-work drinks is seen as a lack of team spirit, and taking sick leave is frowned upon. Anyone who complains is branded as weak. The result: a culture that normalizes working yourself to death.
Triple salaries, but at what social cost?
Against this picture, some point out that average salaries in Japan are triple those in Spain, that food is cheaper and housing, comparatively, more affordable. Moreover, the cleanliness and education of Japanese society are enviable. However, that paradise has cracks: there is also talk of youth prostitution, drunks in bars, gambling venues and a growing influx of immigrants, which breaks the myth of homogeneity.
The debate pits two visions against each other: those who look at the economic balance and those who focus on the human cost. The data don't lie: Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, especially among middle-aged men, and the hikikomori phenomenon (young people who shut themselves in their rooms for years) affects more than half a million people.
Hikikomori: the flip side of career success
Hikikomori is the other side of the coin. If karoshi kills those who endure, hikikomori traps those who cannot stand the pressure. They are young people, usually male, who drop out of school or work and isolate themselves in their rooms, sometimes for decades. Their families, ashamed, hide the problem. In a society that values productivity above all else, failure has no place.
This phenomenon has no equivalent in Spain, where the 'nini' culture (neither studying nor working) exists but without the same stigma. In Japan, being a hikikomori is a family disgrace that is hidden away. And experts warn that the numbers are growing.
The question that remains in the air: would you prefer a triple salary at the cost of living to work? Because in Japan, the answer seems clear: you work until you die or you hide until you disappear. Here, at least, you can complain.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (19 replies).
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