Australia is known as a laid-back nation, but our work-life balance is worse than many other countries

In Japan, there’s a word for “death by overwork”.

It’s karōshi, and the death is commonly caused by a stroke or heart attack, or a suicide linked to overwork and excessive occupational stress.

A 2022 case of karōshi that made headlines — and led to employment reform — was the suicide of a 26-year-old doctor who worked 207 hours of overtime in the month leading up to his death.

But this phenomenon isn’t limited to Japan.

According to a 2021 study by the World Health Organization and International Labour Organization, approximately 750,000 people who worked more than 55 hours per week died from karōshi syndrome globally.

In Australia, full-time employees work an average of 6.2 hours on top of the standard 38 hours each week, according to survey findings from The Australia Institute.

In fact, according to OECD data, we reportedly have a worse work-life balance than New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

So, what’s driving the prevalence of overwork across cultures? And what can we do to stop it?

Work, sleep, repeat

According to Sugumar Mariappanadar, a discipline leader in human resource management at the Australian Catholic University, overwork has become “so, so prevalent” in Australia.

He says many of us aren’t disengaging from work when we clock off. We’re answering phone calls, responding to emails — despite new “right to disconnect” laws — and thinking about work in our private time.

“We [only] have so much human energy to expend for work, or any activity in our life, and then our body has to naturally recuperate,” Dr Mariappanadar says.

But we aren’t all getting the mental and physical recuperation required.

“The effect of that [is] you go to work and you’re not actively engaged in work, because you’re already tired, your human energy is depleted,” Dr Mariappanadar says.

At an individual level, this cycle of burnout can cause high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor mental health, and other conditions associated with chronic disease.

For employers, there are also downsides, including low productivity, poor retention, absenteeism or unplanned leave, and “presenteeism”, when an employee is physically showing up for a job, but not functioning at full capacity.

The dangers of toxic work culture

Himari Semans, a journalist with The Japan Times, says her homeland has a “toxic work culture”.

She reported on the case of Shingo Takashima, the young doctor who took his own life after working 207 hours of overtime and more than 100 days straight.

“He reportedly attempted suicide, but failed, went to work, returned home, and attempted again, and this time, unfortunately succeeding,” she tells ABC Radio National’s The Religion and Ethics Report.

In this case, the hospital where Takashima worked denied a causal relationship between his death and his work. They contested the number of overtime hours, saying Takashima only documented 30 extra hours on hospital records, and that a large bulk of his labour was self-directed study and research.

Ms Semans says there were 4,598 formally recognised cases of karōshi, or “death by overwork”, in 2023.

Employees in transportation and delivery industries were most likely to die from overwork in the form of heart and brain diseases, while healthcare and social welfare workers were most likely to die from “mental disorders that contributed to karōshi”, she explains. 

Ms Semans, who is 23, says she’s grown up knowing about this tragic phenomenon.

“If they’re staying late, you stay late too.”

Clocking off early can almost be viewed as a “betrayal”, Ms Semans explains.

“I think that kind of shame around taking care of yourself needs to be addressed,” she says.

“There are so many aspects of Japanese work culture that are something to be proud of, but [karōshi has] always existed, and I would like to see the day [when] it doesn’t.”

Japan’s labour market is facing profound challenges, due to the nation’s ageing population.

Ms Semans believes this is all the more reason for authorities to grapple with the prevalence of overwork.

“We’re eventually going to hit a wall when no matter how much attitudes change, if there aren’t enough people working, then are we going to make the very few [who are] left work overtime?” she asks.

“Or are we going to bring in a foreign workforce to plug that [labour] shortage?”

“It’s going to be a dire issue if the government doesn’t act on it.” 

Ms Semans believes the issue needs to be tackled by government agencies and corporations working together.

She points to one initiative, where companies that known to overwork employees are put on a “blacklist”.

“No [company] wants to join this list, so that is a big incentive,” she says. 

When work takes on a religious meaning

Around the world, hard work is valued for a range of social, cultural and religious reasons.

Dr Mariappanadar says Confucianism, for example, talks about “faithfulness to duty” and that this has fed into China’s “996 working hour system”.

“What that simply means is you … [work] 9am till 9pm, six days a week.”

He says, in India, lazing around is viewed as “immoral”.

Dr Mariappanadar believes Australians have been deeply influenced by the Protestant work ethic. 

Protestantism is a Christian movement that began in the 16th century in northern Europe, as a deliberate delineation from Roman Catholic doctrines and practices.

One of the leading Protestant reformers, John Calvin, contended that followers should orient their lives around work and view labour as a calling.

As Stephen Kalberg, a historical sociologist from Boston University, writes in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology: “The faithful came to understand their capacity to work methodically, to pursue profit, and to acquire wealth as evidence of their salvation”.

Centuries later, German sociologist Max Weber argued that the Protestant work ethic laid the foundations for capitalism in the West.

This fixation on productivity is particularly pronounced in the United States, a country where the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require employers to pay staff for time not worked, such as vacations or sick leave. 

“That’s how American management practices [are] built.”

He believes Australian companies are replicating this economic, productivity-first model.

“That’s how our societal value of egalitarianism is lost,” he says.

A win-win situation?

New right to disconnect laws mean that Australian employees can refuse to be contacted outside of work hours, within reason.

But Dr Mariappanadar believes more can be done.

He says, culturally, we should be looking to countries like France and Germany for models of managing work-life balance. 

According to OECD data, people in both of these nations have more personal and leisure time each day (16.2 hours and 15.6 hours, respectively) than Australians (14.4 hours).

And yet, Dr Mariappanadar points out, the economies in France and Germany remain productive.  

When it comes to employers, he believes they can alleviate overwork through “sustainable job design”.

“Managers have to sit and talk with their employees … [about] how they can disengage from work,” he says.

Workplaces might offer perks, such as free fruit or discounted gym memberships, to boost employees’ morale or physical health, but Dr Mariappanadar says such initiatives don’t address the root problem.

A sustainable work culture undoubtedly benefits employees, but Dr Mariappanadar says businesses also stand to gain.

If employees can finish on time and mentally switch off, they’re more likely to engage in positive health activities, rest and quality time with loved ones.

This, Dr Mariappanadar argues, will mean employees return to work with the energy to “maximise performance for business benefit”.

“If you put all these [factors] into the equation, you’re making more money if you are really taking care of employees.”