Hey, I’m not making this up:
THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.
Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from ‘high anxiety’ and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.
Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.
Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families.
I can truly understand the Japanese workers’ concerns. For a developed nation, the American workplace – with its two weeks paid vacations, niggardly minimum wage, almost no national holidays and generally cut-throat, paranoid atmosphere – is appallingly heartless. To suddenly superimpose the “values” of the American workplace on any country, let alone one that has a long and cherished tradition of treating workers as part of a closely connected family — well, how could they not freak out? I’m all for being lean and mean and competitive. But the American model totally sucks unless you’re up at the tippy-top, and I hate to think that this is becoming the model for the entire world.
Via yet another site that I don’t get to often enough.
1
By OtherLisa
Waait a second – isn’t Japan the country that has a special word for “death from overwork?” I mean, I was under the impression that Japanese working culture was pretty stressful – am I wrong?
August 14, 2006 @ 1:00 am | Comment
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By richard
Yes, the Japanese workers are and have been very stressed – usually a result of over-working, and their suicide rate is pretty high, if I recall. They are famous, too, for not asking for help when they get depressed or stressed out. Now (at least according to the article) a new layer of stresses is being added that rips at the heart of their cultural conception of the workplace and the role of the company and its relationship to its workers. That, coupled with their already overstressed mania to work until all hours, could be a very nasty combination of stresses.
Your point got me thinking. The American workplace is a heartless beast, but then, the Japanese workplace is not exactly a wellspring of love and affection. I believe, however, that for a very long time, the Japanese have cherished the fact that your company is for life and they take care of you and there is a mutual loyalty. To change that drastically and quickly, replacing it with one of the planet’s most Darwinist systems could be pretty stressful.
August 14, 2006 @ 1:22 am | Comment
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By boo
Most Japanese never had a job for life. That was something promoted by a few large companies, and something that existed in the civil service (where it’s still there, and also there for the most part in these few large companies).
And let’s not pretend there wasn’t any cut-throat rivalry in the secure jobs. You’d join at age 22 and fight with a set of colleagues for promotions, and if you didn’t get one at age 40, you’d be stuck there forever (a life of quiet desperation among people who have decided you aren’t worthwhile, but continue to pay you while giving you no responsibilities). And if you quit, nobody else would hire you.
The difference between now and a generation ago is:
the economy has been stuck in recession for the last 15 years, meaning promotions are much fewer and farther between than before, as are the opportunities for growth within companies.
The meritocracy, on the other hand, is being brought in largely by companies run by foreign capital, and many Japanese welcome it, as these jobs generally pay up to 30% more than their equivalents in traditional companies, promotions are generally easier to get with these growing companies, and these companies are creating a mid-career job market. Previously, quitting the secure job was a career-killer. Not any more.
August 14, 2006 @ 3:35 am | Comment
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By Johnny K
One of my hippie professors denounced this sort of thing as ‘cultural imperialism’ of ‘neoliberalism’ and the west’s ‘toxic’ way of life killing others.
Fortunately she was denied tenure.
I for one am more likely to take richard’s more nuanced point of view which i henceforth claim as mine.
August 14, 2006 @ 3:52 am | Comment
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By kmcolo
The Japanese certainly have had a history of being at work a lot but that does not mean that they have a history of working a lot. There are many stories from Japan of workers sitting at their desks late into the night reading the newspaper.
I for one don’t see what is happening in Japan has the imposition of the Western work ethic (or western office politics) on Japan as much as the Japanese system undergoing a dramatic structural change that is needed to compete. I think there are too many people willing to assign some concerted effort by others when in reality (Ah that wonderful word) it is simply a change in climate.
August 14, 2006 @ 9:27 am | Comment
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By Peter
It sounds to me like a case of the old Asian game of blaming any social problems on foreigners. Rather than saying to themselves “our old corporate culture based on seniority is no longer competitive, so we’re trying new methods which are difficult for many people to adapt to”, they allow themselves to think it’s some insidious Western trend, happening to their corporate culture against their will.
August 14, 2006 @ 1:24 pm | Comment
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By Sonagi
To suddenly superimpose the “values” of the American workplace on any country, let alone one that has a long and cherished tradition of treating workers as part of a closely connected family — well, how could they not freak out?
Who is “superimposing” these values?
Most Japanese never had a job for life. That was something promoted by a few large companies, and something that existed in the civil service (where it’s still there, and also there for the most part in these few large companies).
And let’s not pretend there wasn’t any cut-throat rivalry in the secure jobs. You’d join at age 22 and fight with a set of colleagues for promotions, and if you didn’t get one at age 40, you’d be stuck there forever (a life of quiet desperation among people who have decided you aren’t worthwhile, but continue to pay you while giving you no responsibilities). And if you quit, nobody else would hire you.
Boo, you are correct. Korea’s economy and business culture are modeled after Japan’s and “salarymen” there have followed the same employment path. I met many middle-aged Korean men who were quietly let go. Some of them became subcontracted workers doing the same jobs for less pay and benefits. Some of them started their own companies. Some of them took whatever work they could find. A Japanese colleague, who had dropped out of the corporate world in his early thirties, confirmed that the cases I described happen in Japan, too.
August 14, 2006 @ 5:23 pm | Comment
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By richard
My reference to superimposing values is based on my own experience in China, and it may not be relevant to Japan. In China, these values are being imposed (at least in what I personally witnessed) by Western managers brought in to manage their newly acquired or created Chinese divisions. My most vivd memory was a German manager stepping into a company I did business with and immediately ending the policy of giving all workers 20 RMB each day for lunch money. Free lunch money may be a bad policy, but it’s common in China, and coming in and immedialtey revoking it caused deep distress among the long-time Chinese workers. Of course, that’s not what we’re seeing in Japan (based on the article – I am no expert on what’s happening in Japan), where it sounds like the existing Japanese upper managers themselves are seeking to adopt the Western model.
August 14, 2006 @ 5:43 pm | Comment
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By chris
i’m going to start demanding 20 rmb for lunch money too.
oh, wait, i’m my own employer. maybe i can talk myself into buying lunch for myself…
August 14, 2006 @ 8:15 pm | Comment
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By itha
It is superimposed, the reason being not a change in climate so much as a change in management values. The life cycle of a Western manager today rarely is longer than 2-3 years in the same position or company. During this short period of time, he must raise the company’s or division’s turnover by several percent or cut costs to the same effect. Of course, as the time span is too short, he usually misses his targets. After that he’s either promoted to another position in the same company or made to move to another company to take on the same or a similar kind of position.
The question really is: from an economic point of view, how much sense does it make if half of your staff is suffering from an anxiety or depression or burn-out problem? Right: none. But one would have to consider long term perspectives rather than short time revenues to be able to act economically wise.
August 15, 2006 @ 2:17 am | Comment
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By OtherLisa
itha, that’s so right-on all I can say at this moment is “Halleluja!”
August 15, 2006 @ 2:43 am | Comment
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By ahmet
When a company’s value is determined not by it’s profitability, the quality of it’s products, the expertise of its workforce or the acumen of its management, but instead by its quarterly stock market performance, long term decision making is not a possibility. Only the very strongest companies survive and grow in such an environment. If short term speculative pressure could be mitigated in some way that does not involve intrusion by a clueless government monetary policy, then many more companies could thrive in an environment where longer term decisions could be made.
Also, despite all the lip service that has been paid to corporate management fudiciary responsibility, as long the management at the very top treat the assets of the company as their own treasure chest and are paid disproportionately large salaries, productivity and long term viability will suffer.
As for western management systems being superimposed on the Chinese….I’m all for it. The work ethic at the unskilled labor and the skilled blue collar level is outstanding….people work very, very hard for very little wages. However, at the white collar level, my personal experience has been that Chinese workers treat their jobs like an entitlement and show very little productivity (a polite way of saying that they are among the laziest white collar workers I have ever encountered!). I don’t know if the white collar and middle management phenomenon is an outgrowth of the one child policy, but the lack of productivity needs to be changed now.
August 15, 2006 @ 7:57 am | Comment
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By Lu
WESTERN values? Sure there are similarities between Europe and the US, but in this aspect they are as different from each other as Japan and the US. We in Europe (ok, Western Europe, don’t know about E Europe) have decent holidays, decent minimum wages, protection from being fired whenever, etc etc. The values mentioned above are not Western values, from the Japanese point of view, they’re Eastern.
August 15, 2006 @ 8:46 am | Comment