[Photo: appearing in owlsdaughter.com]

 

Overworking is such a big problem that Japan even has a word for it: KAROSHI – ‘Death by Overwork’

Millions of Japanese people are in danger of working themselves into an early grave. In fact, one in 5 workers are at risk of working themselves to death.

Known for the punishing hours demanded by its 'salaryman' culture, Japan has struggled to tackle the impact of overwork on employees' health. But plans to overhaul labor laws could improve the situation.

Calls for tougher measures to deal with the issue intensified recently following the death of a 24-year-old employee at Dentsu, a major advertising agency. Matsuri Takahashi jumped to her death from a company dormitory in late December 2015. Last month, Tokyo officials recognized her suicide as the result of karoshi, which is defined as employees working so hard that they die from stress-related disease - or become so depressed that they kill themselves.

"Ms. Takashi's death was caused by serious depression triggered by overwork and harassment," Hiroshi Kawahito, a lawyer representing her case, told CNNMoney. Apparently, Takashi had clocked around 105 hours of overtime in the month leading up to her suicide.

'In Denial' For Decades.    "Japan Inc has been in denial about karoshi because it is considered normal that your employees work excessive hours," said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo.

However, "doctors were beginning to see a number of employees who seemed healthy otherwise simply dropping dead," said Scott North, a sociology professor at Osaka University. "They put their knowledge of cardiovascular diseases together with the situation they were seeing to infer that it was overwork that was killing these people."

Since the 1980s, labor lawyers and citizens groups have been pushing for changes to the law to recognize karoshi as a serious social issue. Their efforts resulted in a 2014 law that called for better working conditions but didn't force companies to actually do anything, according to experts.