Long days, overtime and the stimuli of a country that does not rest are driving Japan to an exodus of workers who, tired of a rigid work culture, look to places like Okinawa (south of the archipelago) a slower pace of life, moving away from the productive pressure of metropolises like Tokyo.
“I worked a lot of overtime, I felt a lot of stress and pressure,” Yusuke, a 39-year-old man, told EFE who just three years ago packed his bags for Ishigaki, one of the more than a hundred islands that make up the Okinawa prefecture, to open his own business: a small bar with sea views.
“We are all looking for the same thing, we want to disconnect”says Yusuke, who, accompanied by his partner Megumi, explains that many residents have also come to the island from other parts of Japan, in search of a place to rest.
A bar without television or clock
In his bar there is no television or clock in sight, nor are there any stimuli or neon lights. The climate of the small island is far from their routine in the Japanese capital, where for more than 15 years they were working in an important Japanese bank.
Like them, residents of other prefectures such as Hokkaido (north) or Kanagawa (center) decided to take the loophole and go to Okinawa, recognized as one of the oldest places on the planet and where there is a 40% greater chance than in the rest of the country that its inhabitants will be over 100 years old.
Okinawa, which has a population of 1.4 million people, will register around 25,400 residents from other prefectures and cities in 2025, according to Japanese Government statistics on internal migration in the archipelago.
Change in work culture?
Characterized by a marked dedication that often leads to physical and mental exhaustion, Japanese work culture is, for some experts, “something inherent to the national culture,” specifically the way in which the Japanese feel they must follow group norms.
Ryunosuke Takagi, a researcher at the Italian University of Padua specialized in the culture of overwork in East Asia, tells EFE that it is a combination of factors (such as the search for stability) that leads them to work excessively, even to death, a phenomenon recognized in Japan since the 1970s under the term ‘karoshi’.
100 extra hours per month
And the legal framework in force in Japan, based on the Labor Standards Law, establishes limits of 8 hours per day and 40 hours per weekbut the regulation of overtime is broader, since there is a special clause that allows up to 100 in a single month or 720 annually.
In this context, the expert mentions that there are those who go to the countryside or to the islands, while Others choose to work remotely from tourist locations.
Despite the worrying situation and faced with the option of fleeing the metropolis in search of a more relaxed atmosphere, Ryunosuke explains that “things are starting to change” and that “more and more people are changing jobs frequently”, since “the idea of a job for life is becoming obsolete.”
“This is positive, since these excessive work habits derive mainly from the idea of lifetime employment, which forced employees to work longer in exchange for a promotion based on seniority, which guarantees stability,” he considers.
