, Columnist
Japan Takes On Its Workaholics
Spending endless hours at the office hurts productivity and makes it hard to have children, something the country needs.
Lucky them. Everyone else is still at the office.
Source: Kyodo News/Getty imagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The same problems come up again and again in discussions of what Japan needs to do to revive its economy. The first is low white-collar productivity. The second is population aging. The third is gender equality. Now Japan’s government is poised to attack all three problems at once, undertaking an assault on one of the central features of the country’s corporate culture -- long working hours.
Japan is legendary for its work ethic. You wouldn’t know this from the official statistics, which show Japanese working hours converging with U.S. levels: