Japan is facing a 'death by overwork' problem — here's what it's all about

Japan's work culture is so intense, people in the 1970s invented a word that translates to "death by overwork."
"Karoshi," as it's known, involves employees committing suicide or suffering from heart failure and stroke because of long work hours.
The Japanese federal government has taken steps to reduce karoshi cases, but experts fear the measures don't go far enough.

Ever since the late 1970s, Japan has had a word to refer to people dying from spending too much time in the office: karoshi. The literal translation is "death by overwork."

The latest employee death determined to be karoshi was 31-year-old journalist Miwa Sado. She reportedly logged 159 hours of overtime in one month at the news network NHK, before dying of heart failure in July 2013.

Her death was just recently announced as karoshi in early October 2017.

Before that, 24-year-old Matsuri Takahashi worked 105 hours of overtime in a month at the Japanese ad agency Dentsu. Takahashi leapt from her employer's roof on Christmas Day 2015. Tadashi Ishii, Dentsu's president and CEO, resigned a month later.

Working yourself to death

Japan's karoshi concept can be traced back to the aftermath of World War II.

But within a decade of Yoshida's initial call, Japanese workers began committing suicide and suffering strokes or heart failure from the enormous burdens of stress and sleep deprivation.

Initially, the ailment was known as "occupational sudden death," as the fatalities were primarily job-related, according to researchers studying the history of karoshi. In their quest to make good impressions on their bosses, workers began putting their undying loyalty to the ultimate test.

So it goes for countless other Japanese employees, many of whom work in white-collar jobs that come with rigid hierarchies. Advancement is earned through back-breaking effort. And people seldom leave their jobs because finding a new one means starting from scratch, not at the level they just left.

"We will listen to various views both from the viewpoint of boosting consumer spending and achieving work-style reform, and review the campaign if necessary," Hiroshige Seko, a Japanese politician leading the program, recently told Japan Times.