Time Use Consortium - Seminar - Postponed to Spring 2020, date tbd

Time Use Consortium - Seminar

Friday, December 6 - Seminar
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Title: The Puzzling Problem of Overwork
Presenter: Brigid Schulte, Better Life Lab, New America
Location: New America, 740 15th Street NW, Washington DC 20005

Japanese and American workers work among the longest hours of any advanced economies. Yet, in Japan, the productivity rate for all those hours worked is among the lowest, and America's productivity rates pale in comparison to other advanced economies where workers work fewer, better hours and have time for life. The consequences for such overworking cultures are severe: the Japanese government regularly compensates the families of workers who have, literally, been worked to death - karoshi - or, as is increasingly the case for younger workers, become depressed and suicidal. And in the United States, recent research has found that the stress created by the modern American workplace has made it the fifth leading cause of death. Overwork cultures not only make it impossible for women and caregivers to advance and have a voice, but steal individual agency and time for the very things that make life worth living. So why does overwork persist? Where will it lead? And how can it ever change?  A reporter’s continuing journey.