I don't buy the work culture thing, I can't back it up with hard numbers, but I think Americans work equally long hours, some even two full-time jobs. It's not unheard of that in certain corporate environments people work 60-80 hours a week.
Or is it that Japan doesn't have a "water cooler chat" culture and/or breaks are frowned upon?
Looks like Japanese people worked significantly more hours than Americans in the 80s and 90s, the gap narrowed in the 00s, and the U.S. just (barely) passed Japan starting in 2015. I could be outdated in my understanding of Japanese work culture.
Japanese people seem to stay in the workforce a few years longer, but given the older population, I'm not sure how to weight this.
I'm not an expert on Japan by any stretch, but I do know that there was a severe economic collapse ~1990 (called the lost generation I believe), this changed a previously very strong economic/social contract where people were essentially guaranteed well paying jobs given a relatively low barrier of entry (in exchange they were obviously expected to work very hard), however this led to a removal of that system and many people from that generation have had to struggle to find meaningly work outside of low paying temp work (maybe like a gig economy deal), this led a lot to feel they had been abandoned by their government/corporate entities even though they had done all the things they were "supposed to do" to get into that system.
In a way, I lived through a similar thing in a post-soviet country. Pre-1990 it was illegal, to be unemployed. But on the other hand people got a guaranteed job if they wanted to work. Sure it was in most cases a meaningless job, but a job nevertheless.
Somehow that part of the world seems to have avoided this phenomenon. Maybe because it was a big political/external change (the collapse of the soviet union), so people found it easier to cope with it.
Maybe this also helps explain part of the reason the problem is prevalent in the US as well? Corporate culture in some places can be utterly soul crushing, and the rewards are rarely worth it.
Some people are able to survive, while others get crushed and give up.
> It's not unheard of that in certain corporate environments people work 60-80 hours a week
> certain corporate environments
it happens, both in terms of company, and situation (e.g. crunch weeks), but that ain't the entire country all the time the way it is in Japan.
I recall a study about how the average workday in Japan was peaking at 13 hours, and the corporate execs were worrying that it was starting to trend down. Similar approaches like 996 are a thing in China, too.
I don't think the raw working hours matter. Do a job you love and it's much less of a burden compared to something you dread but do anyways because of social expectations.
