Why work-life balance is a struggle in Asia

Rush hour in Tokyo. For many of the eight million workers in Japan's capital, it's time to go home. For others, it's a trip to the bar. And then there are those who aren't rushing to get anywhere. As they're still at work, putting in much more than your standard eight-hour day. Japan and many other Asian countries have been struggling to curb a culture of overwork, where long hours and self-sacrifice are the norm, despite the personal cost for employees. Karoshi crisis as employees in Japan are working themselves to death. In South Korea, people work a lot. That's pretty much an understatement. The rejection of hustle culture has been happening all around the world, including China. Now many governments across Asia are reconsidering the negative effects of an always-on work culture. But can the region embrace a healthier work-life balance? Or is the pressure to put in long hours too much? It goes by many names. Hustle culture. Capgill. 996. They all describe an unsustainable work culture, driven by demand to work long hours, often for little to no extra pay. In China, 996 refers to a work schedule from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. And while few want to pull such long hours, many feel they have no choice. Surveys show that people across Asia work longer hours than anywhere else in the world. The five-day, 40-hour working week introduced in 1926 has been the standard in global workplaces. Now some European countries and Australia support a six-hour workday. In North America, the average work week is nearly 38 hours, according to a report by the International Labour Organization. People in South Asia and East Asia work about 49 hours per week, the longest in the world. In Asian countries, the norm is that you work 70 hours a day. And in Europe, you work a little bit harder than your peers, that's the ideal worker. So you have to work with the given cultural norm. And over here, probably it's harder to make a change when you already have a more severe overworking problem. The results can be deadly. In Japan, working one's self to death is known as karoshi. The term describes what happens to people who die from diseases brought on by long working hours. Official figures for 2023 reported 54 deaths from overwork-induced health problems, such as strokes and heart attacks. It has prompted the Japanese government to enact laws to ensure workers get enough rest. In Japan, there's a lot of involuntary overwork. I have to stay in my office because my boss is still here. My colleagues are here. And I feel a significant pressure from my workplace and from my clients, etc. And this could lead to involuntary overwork, which is really bad for your well-being. It is not just Japan. Countries throughout Asia have reported tragic instances of employees being worked to death. In countries like China and Japan, where there are strong manufacturing industries, overwork can be difficult to avoid. Asia has become the world's factory. Four of the world's top six manufacturing nations are in the region. Because of the international division of labor, it's particularly harder for us because the world productivity is actually tricky. The European countries, the workers there, they have so-called more productive because they occupy the more creative industries. In the global value chain, they can actually claim more share than Asian countries. So it's harder for us to adapt to the more flexible work schedules. For decades, industrial manufacturing has been seen as the key driver of a nation's economic ascendance. It's what drove so-called economic miracles in Japan, South Korea and mainland China. High-tech manufacturing transformed Taiwan from an exporter of T-shirts into the most vital semiconductor hub on earth. But as many of these economies grew, they embraced a work culture that would seem excessively demanding elsewhere in the world. It's what I call the input-driven culture. If you think about output equals productivity times input, there's two ways you can do this, right? You increase output, you can try to be more productive, or you can try to increase your input. And I think the post-war economic miracle in Japan has been on the input side. It's definitely been on the input side. So basically, in order to achieve results, you work like hell. Work long hours until you get the results that you need. And if you're not getting the results, you're not trying hard enough. Karoshi also refers to work-related suicide cases. Some 82 percent of Japanese workers in 2022 reported experiencing strong anxiety, worry or stress related to their work or professional lives, according to a paper published by the country's Health and Labor Ministry. The situation has worsened in recent years. Nearly 3,000 people died from overwork-related suicides in 2022, up from 1,935 from the previous year. Experts say many suffered from mental stress in the workplace. Harassment. Some governments are trying to address the problem. Singapore gave workers the right to request four-day work weeks in December 2024. The Tokyo metropolitan government is set to introduce a four-day work week in April 2025. Some experts say the move is a step in the right direction. I'm sure there are a lot of private sector companies that are saying, well, we'll see what happens. You know, Tokyo government's going to start it. Let's see if it's going to be successful or not. And maybe we will consider doing this in our workplace as well. We can learn from our predecessors. The Japanese government took steps to prevent karoshi and other health disorders related to overwork in 2014. Four years later, officials introduced laws to limit the longest overtime hours and ensure workers have enough rest time between when work ends and starts again. But experts say the measures can only help reduce the physical harm from long working hours. The government first floated the idea of a shorter working week in 2021 with support from lawmakers. But the concept has been slow to catch on. Only about eight percent of companies in Japan allow employees to have three or more days off per week, while seven percent give their workers the legally mandated one day off, according to Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Even among companies that allow employees to work four days a week, experts say only a few employees have taken up the offer. Japan is a collectivist society. And we, you know, individuals, even to this day, one of the reasons that people end up working long hours is that they're very, very conscious of the people around them, right? So if I'm ready to go home at five, but my boss is working or my colleagues are still working, I feel bad about leaving. And so I will stay because I don't want to disrupt the harmony of the workplace or something, right? And it's also hierarchical in the sense that this might affect my performance review. My boss might not think well of me, etc. So yeah, those workplace cultures could get in the way of this. In some countries like China, change is coming from the bottom up. Chinese workers are not allowed to form independent unions. Instead, the government controls the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which is often ineffective at protecting workers. Workers can only adjust their mental status by being lazy, refusing overtime and hiding in the toilets. They call it touching fish, meaning one should take advantage of a crisis to chase personal gain. Now workers are getting increasingly dissatisfied. Probably in the coming few years, we may witness some change. As I mentioned, even at least you can withdraw, you can leave this industry to another industry to avoid the most overworked industry. So if you want to argue that the problem may not change so easily, that's because the structural forces do not change easily. The government are reluctant to take more actions. We still have very weak collective power on the labor side. With the younger generation pushing back against the overworked culture, Asian countries are slowly catching on. In recent years, annual working hours in Japan dropped by 11.6% from 2000 to 2022, according to the Japan-based Recruit Works Institute. The decline was most pronounced among men in their 20s, who worked an average of 46.4 hours per week in 2000, but only 38.1 hours in 2023. Yes, I think there is a generational divide. And it also depends on your life cycle. So one good sign that we're starting to see is that the uptake of parental leave among men are increasing, right? So the younger generation men have a strong desire to spend time with their families, much more so than the older generations. But experts caution it may be too early to tell if the change truly represents a permanent shift in work culture attitude. Experts say governments need to introduce tougher regulations and enforce the law more effectively. As the world watches Tokyo take steps towards a healthier work-life balance and Asia's demographic crisis deepens, will other countries in the region follow suit?