East Asian work culture is world renowned for its long hours and exhausted laborers. Japanese salary men hustling to catch the last train home, their sleeping bodies stretched out along the seats (sometimes in curiously uncomfortable positions), is an image familiar to many people across the world.
Potentially suicidal devotion to work has in recent decades been viewed as a plague, especially among the Japanese. The Japanese term kar?shi, literally death from overwork, has entered the lexicon of Western journalists and medical practitioners. It even has its own Wikipedia entry.
Despite having the some of the world’s best-kept records on the subject, however, death from overwork is far from unique to Japan. Instances of it have been known to occur the world over, not least in China, which now reportedly leads the world in work exhaustion-related deaths.
It is estimated that some 600,000 people die from work-related stress and its effects every year in China.
This number comes as no surprise to those familiar with the anti-suicide nets in infamous Chinese labor mills such as Foxconn. Long hours, rough conditions, low pay and poor future prospects have been a recipe for work stress-induced suicide at facilities across the country.
While such figures remain alarmingly high, they account for a relatively small percentage of the total number of kar?shi victims in China. Perhaps surprisingly, manual laborers have largely proved resilient to poor work conditions and strenuous physical demands. It’s the so-called “mental labor” jobs, such as those in the advertising field, that have been the primary contributor to dangerously high levels of work-related stress.
These kinds of jobs can be found at all socioeconomic levels, with a slightly disproportionate representation by the middle class. IT employees have shown some of the highest levels of work-related stress with 98.8 percent reporting the negative influence of their job on personal health.
Such health risks include insomnia, listlessness, weight gain and long recovery times for small illnesses such as the common cold. Long-term exposure to these conditions can lead to obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, which in turn can cause heart disease and stroke – the primary killer of kar?shi victims in China.
For the scores of young people in China’s modern metropolises regularly working copious amounts of (usually unpaid) overtime, this information is already old news. Competition for comfortable and well-paid positions in Shanghai or Beijing is notoriously fierce. Those without proper guanxi, or social connections, often never reap the benefits of their death-defying hard work. Much of China’s middle class, especially the young, earn only a fraction what their Western or Japanese workaholic counterparts do.
China’s financial capital of Shanghai has recently seen a sharp increase in the average marrying age of its citizens. The jump is attributed largely to the demanding work pace, which in turn is often justified by traditional cultural requirements of having purchased a house and car before marriage.
The rise of workaholic culture has also coincided with decreasing birth rates in cities and towns, including areas where couples are allowed to have more than one child. The expense of childcare and the parents’ inability to care for children are two contributing factors. In this sense, China is mirroring the same effects Japan has seen from its own overworked populace.
In the absence of widespread social reform, there is a small push to offer insurance for those who die from overwork. The lack of concrete links between cause of death and work-related stress currently makes the struggle an uphill battle.
As China marches its way toward unparalleled economic prominence on the world stage, many issues will stand in its way, including environmental concerns, political corruption and domestic insurgency. Now add an increasingly beleaguered workforce. As in Japan, it is an issue the government cannot afford to ignore.
"As in Japan, it is an issue the government cannot afford to ignore."
As in America and Japan, it is an issue the government cannot care less about, and in fact, an issue that the government hopes will get worse to increase its power over the serfs. Fixed it.
Yeah. People voluntarily working themselves to death is proof-positive that "the people" have swallowed the BS hook, line and sinker.
It's when they DON'T want to work you're up a creek. Hey, wait a minute.....
The SubGeniusTM must have slack.
+1 for mentioning the "Church of the SubGenius" ... "Bob" Dobbs was pretty awesome ... ;-)
Compared to 100 years ago, we have an infinite amount of better machines and more automated machines to do work for us, yet we are all working more than people did 100 years ago.
The whole point of modern industry and technical progress is to provide more time to people, yet with the current system we've received the opposite.
Profoundly true. I had been at a loss to explain it for years. Then I realized -after reading here for the last couple of years that the problem is not innovation. The problem is moar.
And yet, overcapacity is a problem too. Who needs another car? Another computer? Another big screen TV? I see, for example, flash drives all over Peru and everyone seems to have two or more cellphones (at our company that is certainly true).
My hunch is that there is too much capacity, yet the producers are trying to keep their prices too high for buyers.
Maybe the bearing business (especially for tapered roller bearings, Korea will NOT supply what we need, King Hyundai calls the shots there) is different.
***
Korea seems to have problems with overwork as well. On my trip there (2012), the four guys who took care of me (showing me the bearing plants, etc.) all worked 60 hour + weeks. And all four had children...
This point is very important, glad you brought it up. I've read that primitive people worked around 4 hours a day. That'd be seven days a week I think, but still a significant difference. Also keep in mind that since women entered the labour force en masse family incomes have generally dropped or stayed roughly the same. This really means that a family's work has often doubled as people work 50-60 hours instead of 40. If that's two people full-time then 100-120 hours, plus all the unpaid work for google and the spy-apps.
Ok - you gotta stop. You're starting to depress me.... and I was thinking of opening another business..... what a dumb ass I am.
As best we can judge, pre-historic hunter-gatherers were taller, healthier and "worked" far less than those in agricultural societies, up until perhaps the time of the Renaissance. Probably had a lot more fun, too.
On a military level, unfortunately, no hunter-gatherer society could compete with organized agriculturalists who really, really wanted... new land.
BINGO! The real cost of monetary inflation! More spoils yet real quality of life for the average person goes down.
"For a few dollars/yen/yuan more"
Serfdom comes with a price!
It's ok, as long as we got our apple shit.
God bless America's founders; Alexander Hamilton excluded.
I'll second that raspberry for Hamilton.
Serfdom - still the same, just with better marketing......
Same thing here in the US - you may make a decent salary BUT you'd better work 60-80 hours a week, NEVER take sick days or all of your vacation (and be on call 24/7 when you do) and be prepared to get laid off at 50 annd replaced with a younger cheaper version of yourself.
You just summed up my career so far. Haven't hit 50 yet though.
I would tell you that in the USA, today 2014, that you should not expect to keep your position past age 39. It's just about impossible to work for anyone long term any more.
If you can keep your job past 50, you are gifted and lucky. If you can actually work someplace to age 62+, collect all of your defined pension and get a gold watch for your decades in service...don't tell anyone. Keep that to yourself.
That's why the 1% is loving this current economy. They get more free money AND they get to stick it to the serfs even more because decent jobs are scarce. The asshole economy is moving right along!
It's an unwritten rule in the USA (like all countries most of the important things are not written down anywhere) that you do not take all of your vacation, or ANY vacation time in some industries.
Service and Hospitality, if you take time off you are "de-scheduled". Sure you still have your job, your manager just neglects to give you as many hours as before.
USA companies want workaholics who never take time off, or only 5 days per year above the handful of national 3-day-weekend days off.
Even NE Asian cultures have more holiday time.
If you have a good job that pays above 60k USD and it has ANY responsibility then you will be working 60+ hours a week. In at 730am, leave at 630pm, lunch at your desk, work 3 hours Saturday morning, come in at 430pm on Sunday for one hour to get ready for the week ahead. Your boss/the owner will call you at any time, anywhere, including whilst you are on holiday.
He will expect you to have your work cell on and with you at all times. It is like being a physician on call.
If you like it, and there are some on this planet who do and move to the USA 'for a better life', then have at it.
I don't and it's why I am not in North America.
It's why Americans are so bloated, fat, drugged up, TV addicted, sports obsessed and all the rest.
It used to be a great place to live, it isn't any longer. It's just "ok" - average. There are other, better, choices amongst the former British Colonies and if you don't want to go Anglo, many other choices as well.
This is progress?
Some would say I appear to be a deadbeat. I am alive not working myself to death for debt. Garden is looking good and we got five eggs today.
Captain hypocrite signing off...
I agree with you 100%! I live exactly like you. I live in china, own 3 businesses, am productive maybe 2 1/4 days a week. Sleep as late as I want 5 days a week, go abroad to vacation 4x a year, have no debt, 3 houses paid off, 2012 audi a4l paid cash for, pay nearly no taxes on roughly us$125,000/yr.
Life can be pretty good in this day and age, if you get out of the wageslave mindset. However, like you said, even with my ample income, my Chinese wife likes to try and guilt me into making more cash. Fucking idiot. I tell her my life is worth more than the extra wampum I could pull in, and that she oughta just stfu and be happy with what we've got. It's like I'm speaking Martian to her though. Some people just don't get the reason for being alive.
My wife's parents try to make me feel like a bum too cuz I wake up just before lunch usually. Hell, I make more in a year than they made combined in a lifetime of work. Why the fuck should I care. By the way, I used to work 7 days a week for years, and developed high blood pressure by 30, and have had to take medication since. Nobody cares though. They'd be happy as hell to see me work myself to death and leave millions to my wife and kids. Fuck them, fuck my wife, fuck my kids. It seems the only person who can care for you truly, is just yourself. That being the case, I suggest everyone here, be good to yourselves.
Excellent point.
As a man, it is NEVER 'your time'. The only time you get is on your deathbed.
Maybe.
Your are expected to work like a serf slave until death, and even in death you had better not be 'a whinger' that bothers the nurses.
Take care of yourself, no one cares about you - and that includes your parents, wife, siblings and children.
Don't forget a group of asshole criminal politicians from the US returning from a trip from China several years ago were in complete awe of Chinese factories and very jealous. True story.
I wonder how many government employees have died of overwork?
You know how many people work at the Federal Goverment?
About 20%.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oShTJ90fC34
Don't tell the workaholoics here in the US who have no life or identity away from work and who also complain endlessly about everyone else's lack of a work ethic, or they may have to double down to prove themselves better than the Chinese. Although, now that I think about it, telling them may rid us of more endless bitching in this country just a little sooner.
Sorry just thinking out loud, I've been around these types of folks too much in my earlier years, until I got away from them as much as possible.
Oh yeah I loved those assholes when I was young. They were all "hard working motherfuckers" who were always "working my ass off" for the family, the man, etc. they always said I was lazy, a dreamer, etc, and there is no such thing as easy money. Just resign yourself to work hard and play hard till you die. Well, I think the world would be a much better place once these dumbasses and their serf work ethic pass into the great unknown.
at 55 after 20 years with the company and managing two sales and service crews in 2 largest midwest cities I got the dreaded phone call. Cell phone, office keys and toll pass please. Good luck in your future endeavors. Just like that 100 k plus a year managing sales crews doing over 4 million in sales in each city. OUt on the street looking for work. God bless America.
You should have kept an up to date resume and a complete list of all your contacts and customer details names, addresses and what prices they paid). The day they let you go you then go to the competition and get a job there. They will want your experience, your contacts, your inside knowledge and your old employers customer list.
Loyalty is a 2 way street. You owe your old employer none.
It was likely that your insurance cost too much.
Insurance brackets are 18-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54 and then every year thereafter.
Your insurance was going up each year, and it was going up a large amount, and they cost-benefit-analysed you out of a job.
Let's hope you saved much of that 2.5 million over the past 2 decades...
...if you are single and male, leave the USA and go anywhere. South America, Asia, Ukraine, Czech Republic.
Get out.
$25,000 USD is a fortune in another country.
$250,000+plus puts you in luxury, if you leave the USA.
Dying is no big deal in china.....people die even in family related
accidents.
If you understand chinese culture, chinese are famous for killing each other, including family members.
Culture change is interesting.
In the late 19th century those pig tailed coolies where considered some of the laziest people in Asia. There was no reason to be ambitious.
Don't listen to this article: most Chinese are NOT hardworking. The vast majority remind me of Africans- slow walking, slow talking, slow thinking morons, who treat work like a punishment handed down from the gods. Can't say I blame lazy people much. Maybe they see that we are all gonna die and lose everything at some point, so why bother. That's some pretty sound logic compared to folks killing themselves for face and other bullshit.
@tsukato dude if you hate your life so much why don't you shut up and get a divorce already. Complainting all over ZH doesn't help you or us readers
Haha! I wasn't really complaining, just telling that guy he's not alone, and I agree with him. Regarding divorce: you're probably right. Regarding your shitty little remark- maybe you're right that I don't benefit cunts like you by posting shit like this. Who cares? You're a mealy mouthed little self hating bitch, regardless of what I write.
Tsukato is right, Chinese work hardest when trying to get foreigners to do their work for them. A Chinese wife? Gulp...did you see the movie, "Shanghai'd Soon"...??
No, I've never seen it, but I can imagine. Actually my wife's not that bad. They just have no concept of why I wouldn't do everything in my power to gain face, and try my damnest to become an American millionaire. Can't really blame them though, and I've actually stopped after setting the record straight. Actually, they're a lot like an advanced monkey. Just want that shiney
shit so bad. Fuck em though. I'm not stupid enough to let Chinese run my life. That would be beyond stupid and suicidal.
By the way, to set the record straight among you folks who have never dealt much with East Asians, I should let you in on a nugget of truth: they are not overly bright people. Cut throat and corrupt, yes, but really intelligent- not at all. Caucosoids are vastly sharper, but that doesn't include all caucosoids obviously. Only need to spend time in an American Walmart to tell you as much.
The Elderly are not allowed to be 'selfish' and spend 'the families money' (their personal savings) on extending life when they get ill at age.
They are to die so that the family can have the money...to go play Mahjhong...
Lots of liquid insecticides and pesticides in my part of town.
In america we're being entertained to death.....people now talk and act just like the hordes of comedy writers that create all the childish crap on television.
Ever see how these Jap salarymen drink?
I don't think it's overwork that kills them.
Yeah, they get off work and go to the bar. It's part of the culture, and it's mandatory for most salarymen. But they aren't working.
Japan has women-only train cars at night for a reason.
It's a bitch trying to keep up with the Jones/Chins/Tanakas.
Fuck it! Give them welfare. Create welfare cliffs. Give them Obamacare (where full-time labor penalizes the employer). Create ridiculous labor laws. Look at the socialistic mess that are Europe and America. What are youth unemployment and labor participation rates in Europe and America? Government interference is the best deterrent for over work.
I would beg to differ, since you want to hand everything to the employer and then your backup argument will be to become one(even if Ricardo says that not everyone can do well at being at one). That, and you seem to imply that the employer should be immune from any criticism about its own entitlements, given your complaints about labor laws not being powerful enough for the employer.
First of all, temporary labor as an employers' union needs to be treated like a labor union and broken with RTW. Next, about every other HR weapon that employers use need to be removed as well (new entry, long-termer, and age avoidance as well as offshoring).
They are obviously not concerned with making money otherwise they wouldn't waste so much time working.
" It’s the so-called “mental labor” jobs, such as those in the advertising field, that have been the primary contributor to dangerously high levels of work-related stress."
Yeah, well..... FUCK salesmen.
You said a mouthful. Fuck salesmen. But I would go farther and say fuck all corporate drones. Weak assed bitches who could do nothing on their own. I was eating lunch yesterday at a new Irish pub in my city. Pretty good food. And, as has happened countless times before, while living abroad, some tall, douchebag suit and tie comes in with some Chinese he's paid to suck off, and starts talking to me with an air of a superior talking to a subordinate. Fucking unreal. I just started ignoring him after a couple sentences, and wouldn't respond to his horseshit small talk. Acted really bored until he finally fucked off. I really despise corporate whores.
They are Zombies. Full stop.
Is there a more embarrassing way to die?
Bunch of pussies.
Let's check out the latest Darwin Awards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_award
Yep, there seem to be more embarassing ways ...
One could say that it's the ultimate expression in business friendliness, given that it prioritizes the employer's entitlement mentality over the health of their workers.
The slave labor mentality is being brought back here to America; Foxconn is openly bringing their automated plants here to capitalize on the moron labor pool; despite the state of the art automation equipment, they are terrible at process control and supply chain mgt. Don't even ask them about 6 Sigma... so working for them becomes a mandatory 6 days a week or more, just to do a volume of production that most semi competant USA factories could build in 4 days. There is no communication in these places etc...Mr. Demming would puke if he saw how backwards this crap is. Surprise surprise- much of the labor is 'contractor' based, meaning little or no training and extremely high turnover. But hey the rates are low -just like the work quality.