Japan Is Dying

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**Mathieu Raymond**

Kilkrazy wrote:

People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.

Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.

**Ahtman**

Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:

People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.

Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.

As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.

**sebster**

cincydooley wrote:
It wasn't, but thats okay.

Cheers.

I commented on the rest of your political opinion, and you couldn't even bring yourself to defend that. You just said that your opinion is like only one part of a comedy movie, not the whole movie, and the real world claims where I pointed out you were wrong you just left out.

So again, what kind of response do you think that merits?

**cincydooley**

sebster wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
It wasn't, but thats okay.

Cheers.

I commented on the rest of your political opinion, and you couldn't even bring yourself to defend that. You just said that your opinion is like only one part of a comedy movie, not the whole movie, and the real world claims where I pointed out you were wrong you just left out.

So again, what kind of response do you think that merits?

Again, you're wrong.

I noted that the open scene, which is a satire, is actually very much a truth in the United States.

You're my favorite!

**djones520**

LordofHats wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
This isn't a Japanese issue, though. It is common in developed countries.

Different places can have different reasons for having the same problem (see Russia for a country with reasons for a birth rate decline not very relatable to others). Japan probably gets mentioned a lot 1) because many Americans have a fascination with Japan and 2) the colorful sub-cultures that can be found in Japan, at least from our perspective. Otaku for example get a lot of attention, mostly because they're so out there I think, not necessariy because they're unique, but they draw a lot of outside fascination.

It's not like we can't talk about the issue in a specific place and why it might happen there for its own reasons. We can't really draw parallels from a problem in one place to that problem in another until the cause in both has been identified in some way. To start from the global and move to the regional is backwards.

Japan to me seems to have had a toxic breakdown in faith in the family on one end, particularly on the male side. This can probably be related to the work/life balance in the 60's and 70's you mention and that it doesn't seem as badly mirrored on the women's side might be relatable to stay at home moms. For a global comparison, I can think of at least 1 group in the US that can be directly related to this; Army brats. There's a similar divide among children who grew up with military parents. Similarities of note include fathers who are often absent for long periods of time and stay at home mothers. I can't speak for the other service branches because I've never read anything to say they have the same problem but many young men who grew up in the army can be broken into two groups. The ones that are very hard working and become quite successful and the ones who have work ethic problems and seem disillusioned about family and success. They ahve difficulty forming personal relationships, especially romantic ones. To my knowledge no ones ever done a direct comparison between Japanese youth and Army brats but when reading articles about these groups creates a lot of similarities in respect to social outlooks and birth rates (women are a little different from AB's though because fembrats tend to end up having the typical number of kids or a lot of kids, so there's still clearly som differences at least on that front).

So yeah. This problem might very much have something to do with work/life balances, but I don't think that alone can explain. Families in third world countries often have parents who spend almost all their time working but they still have large families.

Very good thought process on that. Being a military brat (Air Force), I can empasize with the parent being gone for long periods of time. 4-5 years of my childhood all together probably. If your breakdown is accurate, I'd certainly describe myself as being part of the succesful group of children. My father took a job as a Recruiter in the last quarter of his career, so I spent my teen years away from the military life, and lost track of all of my friends, so I can't really say with any experience how others in my "social group" turned out.

But like you said, that can't be the entire issue. The Japanese view on sexuality has got to have a lot to do with it as well. Despite how "open" they seem about it, it always struck me as being very repressed, and given the combination with other social factors, it may just be a casualty of everything combined.

I am nothing remotely close to being an expert on this. I've spent a very large chunk of my life living in Japan, but I didn't study their society on such a level, so just kinda spit balling here.

**Mathieu Raymond**

Ahtman wrote:
Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:

People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.

Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.

As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.

Gosh, I had a friend who had a boss like that. He had no kids. Usually called ahead at the lab to make sure everyone knew he expected them to be working, and then around quarter to five would announce a meeting or come out to jazz the troops into staying a little longer since he wasn't leaving, they should stay with him.

**sebster**

cincydooley wrote:
Again, you're wrong.

I noted that the open scene, which is a satire, is actually very much a truth in the United States.

Yeah, exactly, I pointed out reasons you were wrong about your claim, in addition to saying that wasn't what the movie was about, and you just replied that you were only talking about the beginning of the movie, and making no comment on the actual points in which you were wrong.

You're my favorite!

You are not mine.

**hotsauceman1**

Ahtman wrote:
Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:

People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.

Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.

As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.

That Documentary said that each resident can expect as much as 10 days off a year.

**cincydooley**

sebster wrote:
.

You're my favorite!

You are not mine.

My heart breaks.

**sebster**

cincydooley wrote:
My heart breaks.

Don't despair, you might be a long way from being my favourite poster right now, but my standards aren't that high. Just respond to the content in posts with meaningful content of your own, and you'll be my very favourite dakkaite.

**Bullockist**

cincydooley wrote:
sebster wrote:
.

You're my favorite!

You are not mine.

My heart breaks.

This can't happen soon enough.

**Kilkrazy**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:

People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.

Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.

As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.

That Documentary said that each resident can expect as much as 10 days off a year.

10 days is the typical holiday allowance. There are also 14 national holidays so people get at least one long weekend a month. OTOH sick leave is not paid.

Presenteesism is a result of the general problem that office work productivity tends to be judged by the amount of face time because it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.

**Seaward**

Kilkrazy wrote:
it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.

wut

**Jehan-reznor**

Seaward wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.

wut

Don't get that either, Japan has that whole Company first mentality, if you are always at work, your chances of promotion increases.
Being from Holland, i am strange and only work overtime when the project demands it, safe to say this is not appreciated.

**Bullockist**

I myself have never understood japans presenteeism. Surely if you have time to sleep and enjoy yourself you will be more effective at work?
I'm clearly missing something.

**sebster**

Bullockist wrote:
I myself have never understood japans presenteeism. Surely if you have time to sleep and enjoy yourself you will be more effective at work?
I'm clearly missing something.

A friend of mine described the culture shock teaching in South Korea compared to Australia. Here in Australia he was pleading with parents to get their kids to sit down and do just a little homework, while in South Korea he was pleading with them to stop making their kids study in to the wee hours of the morning, because it meant they were learning less.

**Kilkrazy**

Seaward wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.

wut

To give made up examples, let’s suppose you are employed in a car factory to fit the windscreens. Your work norm is to fit six windscreens per hour with a maximum of one defect per 100 fitted.

Alternatively, you might be a low level manager in a large insurance company. Your work norm is to write six memos per hour with a maximum of one grammatical error per 100 sentences.

I am sure you can see how the first work norm is a clear, sensible definition of duties, while the second work norm is complete nonsense. Yet activities such as writing memos, doing research (reading) and other hard to define activities are typical office tasks.

As a more extreme example, a graphic artist might make take a week to make 99 sketches of a new logo, all of which are rejected. The 100th is dynamite because his creative process has been active all the time developing towards the perfect design. Should the artist be sacked because 99% of his output was rejected?

The bloke who designed the I heart NY logo sketched it on a paper napkin on his way to a meeting without doing any preparation. He had the basic design in a minute. All he had to do to finish it was choose the font.

In general it is hard to tell if office worker output is properly productive, so input (time in the office) often is measured instead.

**Fafnir**

Kilkrazy wrote:

As a more extreme example, a graphic artist might make take a week to make 99 sketches of a new logo, all of which are rejected. The 100th is dynamite because his creative process has been active all the time developing towards the perfect design. Should the artist be sacked because 99% of his output was rejected?

The bloke who designed the I heart NY logo sketched it on a paper napkin on his way to a meeting without doing any preparation. He had the basic design in a minute. All he had to do to finish it was choose the font.

Yep, the problem here is that you're paying for ideas, and the time invested in creating an idea is incredibly variable and dependent on factors far beyond our comprehension. Creativity is impossibly hard to measure or even quantify, let alone monetize. And as our industrialized world continues to grow, our reliance on ideas over physical productivity will grow with it.

Some people work better pushing things together at a tight deadline, while others push their work further with hours upon hours of dedicated work. Most will likely work best at different times in both methods. As much as I live for the wok I do, even I can grow tired and in need a break. Overworking hurts more than your physical productivity. Your ideas and thoughts end up growing stagnant.

**scarletsquig**

House prices are insanely high in Japan, and 75-year, or inter-generational mortgages are common.

This is the actual reason that no news website will ever be willing to acknowledge.

Children aren't being born because people can't afford to be a stable home for them to live in. It's economic castration caused by the deliberate speculation over property.

**reds8n**

sebster wrote:
Bullockist wrote:
I myself have never understood japans presenteeism. Surely if you have time to sleep and enjoy yourself you will be more effective at work?
I'm clearly missing something.

A friend of mine described the culture shock teaching in South Korea compared to Australia. Here in Australia he was pleading with parents to get their kids to sit down and do just a little homework, while in South Korea he was pleading with them to stop making their kids study in to the wee hours of the morning, because it meant they were learning less.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/10-year-old-boy-jumps-to-death-on-teacher-s-order-in-china/article1-1146015.aspx

as you do.

**Mathieu Raymond**

I had customer service jobs where they compared the optimal result for a call (chosen at random) with the time it took for resolution. There was even a factor that was applied if the hardware was hard to connect to. Every piece of paperwork that had to be addressed and filed was accounted for. Even if I did all of these things exceedingly well, I would still get middling marks on my evaluation forms "because I was so young, so they wanted to be able to show improvement over the years."

Another job as a data entry clerk was linked to how many credit apps we could punch in during an hour, mistakes counting against your score. Apparently, the economy taking it easy and no apps coming in was a strike against us, apparently.

Now I'm in the same boat as the teacher friend, pleading with parents to encourage their children to do homework. Le sigh.

**Grey Templar**

scarletsquig wrote:
House prices are insanely high in Japan, and 75-year, or inter-generational mortgages are common.

This is the actual reason that no news website will ever be willing to acknowledge.

Children aren't being born because people can't afford to be a stable home for them to live in. It's economic castration caused by the deliberate speculation over property.

Well, if these mortgages are truly inter-generational than surely you end up with your parent's old place.

**Kilkrazy**

It is fairly common in Japan to build multi-generational houses. The building plot will have one house divided into two dwellings for the parents and one son or daughter and their family.

**Grey Templar**

So therefore living space isn't really an excuse.

**Kilkrazy**

The Japanese are used to living in small spaces.

It's more a question of the families that can't afford multi-generational houses, which is the majority.

When I said fairly common, I ought to have said not unusual. It isn't all that common, just a lot more common than in western countries.

**Squigsquasher**

Oh good.

It's THIS story again.

**Ahtman**

Squigsquasher wrote:
Oh good.

It's THIS story again.

Well, there have been several avenues explored, which one specifically are you not contributing anything useful to?

**sebster**

Kilkrazy wrote:
In general it is hard to tell if office worker output is properly productive, so input (time in the office) often is measured instead.

Yep. There is an obeservation frequently made in bevavioural economics that incentive schemes work extremely well for people at the base level of the company and extremely poorly at the top end of the company, and despite this almost all KPI based remuneration schemes are for the top end of the company (where they work poorly) and not for the bottom end of the company (where they would work well).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

reds8n wrote:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/10-year-old-boy-jumps-to-death-on-teacher-s-order-in-china/article1-1146015.aspx

as you do.

Yeah, heard about that. Different world, huh?

**TheSaintofKilllers**

cincydooley wrote:
sebster wrote:
cincydooley wrote:
It wasn't, but thats okay.

Cheers.

I commented on the rest of your political opinion, and you couldn't even bring yourself to defend that. You just said that your opinion is like only one part of a comedy movie, not the whole movie, and the real world claims where I pointed out you were wrong you just left out.

So again, what kind of response do you think that merits?

Again, you're wrong.

I noted that the open scene, which is a satire, is actually very much a truth in the United States.

You're my favorite!

Jesus haven't seen that exact wording on a analogy on the state of America before. Did you come up with that yourself

?
You're one of everyone's favorites, bud.
In reply to the topic I find this wonderful that a nation where nothing is sacred Is committing slow suicide as extension to this. Pretty therapeutic on my conscious and hopefully as an example to help keep at least some things sacred and dear. I remember trying to get my mitts on a Japanese 3ds and Monster Hunter 4 (not released stateside) and realized something. They pay like 50-120% more for everything. It's hilarious how cruel and sneaky their government is with lies of "poorly made" foreign products.

**hotsauceman1**

I brought this up in my Sociolgy class at a portion where my teacher wante to talk about the news.
I kid you not, A girl sitting next to me, who is japanese said "Thats because japanese men are horrible Lays"