Translator: Reiko Bovee Reviewer: Krystian Aparta
Hello everyone.
I am sure you know
that the birth rate in Japan is quite low today.
Why do you think it is so?
Why do you think women in Japan don't want to have kids?
I know why from my experience.
My son is now 6 years old.
You may be surprised to see how cute he is in this picture.
(Laughter)
After I gave birth to him 6 years ago,
I really had a hard time.
My parents live far from where I live so nobody but my husband was my help.
But those days, he was coming home around 2 a.m.
Whenever I put my baby down in the crib, he cried.
I didn't know what to do.
When I thought that if he would ever die in my arms,
it would be all my fault,
I got scared and started crying and kept crying.
When he'd finally fall asleep, and I gingerly put him down into the crib,
my husband would come home as if he knew it was the right time,
and he'd wake up the baby by slamming the door.
I even told my husband I would rather he didn't come home!
Because of this experience, I never wanted to have another baby.
I believe the long working hours of husbands
cause the low birth rate in Japan.
Since then, my husband's working schedule has dramatically changed.
He now helps me with household chores, doing as much as I do.
My attitude has also completely changed,
and I began to want to have another child.
In fact, I am pregnant with the second child!
(Applause)
Thank you.
My attitude has really changed.
The birth rate is not the only problem we're facing.
All sorts of problems, such as depression, diversity,
elderly care, financial problems are piled up.
Nevertheless, there are ways to fix them without depending on public finance.
That is, not to have long working hours.
I would like to talk about that idea today.
I have been working as a consultant giving advice to 900 companies
concerning their ways of working.
Some companies even have more revenue
after cutting down their overtime hours by 30%.
The actual revenue won't go down.
Actually the more time they spend at work, the worse their results become,
because their business spirals down into an abysmal low.
The number of Japanese people who work overtime more than 60 hours
is higher than any other countries.
But the contributing value of each individual
is the lowest among the industrialized countries.
As their out-of-work experience diminishes,
their ability to bring new ideas to work decreases as well.
No matter how much time they spend at a meeting,
their lack of new ideas means the meeting wouldn't go anywhere.
Only poor ideas come up, so the meeting drags on;
they can't go home; the products won't sell.
This vicious cycle has no end.
There is also the responsibility for their aging parents.
The baby boomers will be in their 70s in the next 5 years.
Consequently, the number of people in the following generation
who are going to take care of their aging parents,
and will have to allocate their time for work and their aging parents,
will suddenly increase.
The car company T has 68,000 people.
14,000 people out of them are estimated
to start taking care of their parents in the next 5 years.
One out of 5 employees!
To cope with this problem,
we had better quit working long hours, right?
But people worry that if we limit the working hours,
it may lower productivity and diminish our will to compete.
Instead, I would rather say the effect is opposite.
This is what I want to convey to you today.
By comparing company A that keeps long working hours
and company B with revolutionary ideas,
I would like to show you how different the outcomes would be.
Company A keeps long working hours,
laying off people in order to cut down the overheads.
As a result, that imposes a burden on the people
who remain in the company,
and it turns out that the overtime
costs more than the savings from laying off people.
On top of that, the most competent people leave.
The consequences are more depressed people
and lack of concentration at work.
The overall cost increases after all.
This is the situation many companies increasingly fall into.
To make the matter worse, when some permanently leave work
to care for their elderly parents,
due to the lay-offs, there aren't enough people
to cover the work of the people who left the company.
To fix the problem they try to hire new employees,
but competent people won't apply to a company like that.
Keeping the company afloat is getting harder and harder,
and it tumbles down into the abysmal plunge.
What about company B, which has revolutionary ideas?
They also want to lower the fixed costs,
but they focus on cutting down overtime instead,
and actively hire young people as full-time employees,
and hire women who need to work on limited schedules.
I have been running my company without overtime for the past six years.
All the best employees in my firm are actually women
who work on their limited schedules.
Working hours and outcome do not correlate.
Those who only have a limited time they can work
are highly efficient even in a short period.
Not only the employees' efficiency
but also the diversity of gender and age
individually add high value to the company
as their varied ideas inspire one another.
Even if some miss work to care for their parents,
there are enough people to cover their missed work.
Those who need time to care for babies or parents
don't even have to permanently leave work.
This kind of company attracts more competent people,
and it becomes a sustainable company with promising productivity.
You may say you don't have a baby or an elderly parent to care for,
but this also greatly influences your life,
because the fact of whether or not you keep working overtime
will decide Japan's economic future.
Continuing to have long working hours will have the following consequences.
First, because we don't have time to care for our aging parents,
we ask the government for 24-hour elderly-care facilities
which puts more financial burdens on the government.
We ask to extend the time our kids can stay at the nursery,
because we can't leave work to pick up kids before the school closes.
The time extension makes the school go into the red,
and it turns into the local government's deficit.
At home we can't have enough time to nurture our children
because both parents work overtime.
We don't have time to check our kid's homework,
so we depend on the After School Care program.
Women can't balance their career and raising children.
Responsibility for child care drives about 70% of women in Japan
to permanently leave their work.
Therefore their pension will be lower,
and that will lead to more people who will rely on welfare in the future.
Since companies can't produce much revenue,
they can't afford to hire any new people.
So, they ask for employment adjustment subsidy
in order to meet the government quota to hire more.
On and on like this, the financial pressure
on the government escalates.
The tighter the government financing becomes,
the more the citizens are burdened by increasing taxes.
What will happen if we quit working long hours?
We will be able to have time to care for our elderly parents
coming home as scheduled,
while coordinating with home or respite care.
We will also be able to pick up our kids in time.
Since both parents can continue working,
our two incomes can support our families.
And I think the most important thing in our families is:
Fathers can have time to listen
to their kids every evening at dinner time.
and would be able to engage in kids' problems such as school bullying,
not to mention to check their homework and nurturing them.
Moreover, mothers who can deal with both, work and childcare,
can keep paying their pension premiums.
And the more productivity of companies means more people to be hired.
In short, not having long working hours helps us solve our social problems
without putting a financial burden on the government
in taking care of children, elderly parents and our health
on our own initiative.
This is the problem not only for Japan.
Take a quick look at this graph.
This shows the shift of the rate of aging population.
23% of Japan's population are the elderly,
the highest percentage in the world.
But Korea by the year 2030,
China by 2040, will follow us.
Korea, China, Singapore and Thailand are in the "bonus period" of population;
they have more young people than older people.
Which means they are more likely to economically advance
because they're less burdened by social welfare spending.
But they can't avoid low birth rate which will come after this period,
and the labor cost will hit the roof and reach the maturation period.
Then just like what's happening in Japan right now,
just putting more time into work won't help them
in the maturation period
in order to survive in this highly competitive world.
So they will have to transform their business style
into one in which they can be more productive in a short period.
I believe Japan plays an important role in showing other Asian countries
a good example of how to go through this transition,
for them to overcome the same problems they will encounter in the future.
That is why I ask you all of you to help.
Help the people around you open their eyes to this idea,
however slow the process may be.
For instance, please tell the fathers who have small children,
and work overtime, leaving all the family matters to their wives:
Your life will be valued by your family, not the company.
Your company won't thank you, a year after you retire,
for working hard until the previous year,
or praise you saying how great you had been until the year before last.
Instead you will be told by your family that you have neglected them
for the past 30 years.
You will be accused of not having done any household chores
for the rest of your life.
Do you think it will make you happy?
You, the people in managing positions,
may boast you haven't put any financial pressure on the company
because you didn't get overtime pay however late you worked.
Do you think your subordinates would be willing to succeed you,
as they know you don't get paid for overtime,
plus there is high responsibility and a bigger workload,
and it is a job that wrecks families?
Your subordinates' motivation will keep falling,
unless you change yourself.
And I often hear you, the employers, say that you are too worried
to let your employees go home early when business is this slow.
Brain neuroscientists confirm this:
Our brain can concentrate only for 13 hours after we wake up.
After that, our concentration is as bad as drunk driving.
You are paying extra for the time
when people tend to make more mistakes and have less good ideas.
Don't you think it's too silly? I want everyone to tell them this.
I may not have to tell you this by now,
but to conclude this talk, I would like to ask you
to do this and encourage others to do it:
Quit working long hours
and placing a financial burden on the government
in order to solve our piled-up problems in Japan.
This will let us have more private time
and a lot of new ideas to input into our work,
which will improve the quality of our work and make us more productive.
I dream of a society with work-life synergy,
a world where everybody has a rich work and private life.
I hope all of you will join me
and work together with me toward that dream.
Thank you very much for your time.
(Applause)