More new employees in Japan choose working rather than dating

Tuesday 30th June, 02:30 PM JST

TOKYO —

More than 80 percent of new recruits who started working this spring would choose to work if asked to do overtime rather than go out on a date, according to a survey released on Monday, possibly reflecting a shift in young people’s values under harsh economic conditions. A record-high 82.8 percent of 3,200 new employees polled who participated in job training offered by the Japan Productivity Center, a nonprofit organization based in Tokyo, between March and April said they would prioritize work, while 16.6 percent said they would choose a date over extra work, according to the survey. The gap between the two sides has been growing from 25 percentage points in 1991 and hit a record this year at 66.2 points, with 78.6 percent of men and 88.4 percent of women prioritizing work, the survey said. ‘‘Perhaps people are becoming more conscious of work than their private lives as they really feel how harsh the economy is,’’ said an official in charge of the survey.

Asked whether they feel insecure about possibly being laid off, 46.1 percent answered yes, an increase from 39.8 percent in last year’s survey. Some 48.9 percent said they would continue to work as well as their partner even after getting married, with a record-high 63.1 percent of women saying they would work after marrying. The survey introduced this year a question about whether people feel they could not get married without actively searching for a marriage partner, to which 35.2 percent of men and 25.6 percent of women replied yes.

Kyodo

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Latest 15 of 65 Total Comments Show All

griff at 07:42 AM JST - 2nd July

I always found dating the boss was a great way.

rather depends on the boss
jhk at 08:36 AM JST - 2nd July

That's called "selling out".
sfjp330 at 09:58 AM JST - 2nd July

This tells you how insecure Japanese are. Japanese companies do not permit separate work and private time. This is why you see so much unhappiness in quality of life. For a country that is 2nd in GNP in the world, only 1 of 7 couples have happy marriage.
griff at 11:57 AM JST - 2nd July

It suggests young Japanese are doing the exact opposite of what they're doing in this article, ie refusing to do overtime because they have a full social calendar. There is no mention of revving bikes at 3 am.

to quote the article:

‘Look, I’m booked up for two months, I can’t work overtime on such short notice.’ But what was he ‘booked up’ with? Not company business but parties, drinking sessions, ‘idol’ concerts!”

no mention of dating. therefore this article does not contradict the other.
cleo at 12:08 PM JST - 2nd July

no mention of dating. therefore this article does not contradict the other.

So....young people choose work over dating (if you ask a bunch of newbies at a job training seminar, in the middle of a recession), and parties over work...yes, I reckon that means the country is going to the dogs and the whole nation is doomed.

Or maybe it just means people will read whatever they want to read into a couple of half-baked articles. Which is what I said in the first place.
griff at 12:15 PM JST - 2nd July

the implication is that industry is contributing to the birthrate issue. this logically leads one to conclude that industry cares not for the wider well being of society. ergo industry is at odds with society
boboh at 05:34 PM JST - 2nd July

Suckers, slaves, unthinking robots without an original idea between them. Go to work then and continue the vicious cycle that blights that country and has turned it into a dysfunctional society, preoccupied with infantile and instant gratifications.
jhk at 07:08 PM JST - 2nd July

10% of the world owns 80% of the assets, the bottom 50% own less than 1%. This probably affects our ability to date. Big problem.
smithinjapan at 07:55 PM JST - 2nd July

cleo: "It suggests young Japanese are doing the exact opposite of what they're doing in this article, ie refusing to do overtime because they have a full social calendar. There is no mention of revving bikes at 3 am."

I realize I'm nit-picking, but my whole point was that THIS article is strictly about choosing work over specifically dating, not about choosing a general social calendar over work. As such it's valid, in my opinion, to question whether criticising, say, a kid who's calendar consists of sitting at home and watching TV all night over work, or going out on dates. In short, the previous article is not specific about what the youngsters are choosing over work (aside from saying their social lives).

If it said simply in this case 'their social calendars' instead of dating, I would agree whole-heartedly. Choosing overwork instead of dating specifically presents a slightly different problem.
cleo at 08:19 PM JST - 2nd July

smitty -

Yes, you are nit-picking, but since it's you, you're forgiven.

My whole point is that whatever the topic, people fall over themselves to crow gleefully that Japan / the Japanese are failing on account of their many and obvious imperfections found nowhere else on the planet and the sky is about to fall. They aren't, and it isn't.

It's perfectly valid to criticise the couch potato in your own living-room, or even in next door's living room if you know him/her personally and what it is that keeps him/her on the couch in preference to working/finding a date; but it's not valid to criticise a whole country on the strength of a couple of paragraphs relating the expressed choices of a group of kids, still wet behind the ears in their new jobs, who in every likelihood simply said what they thought they were supposed to say on this job-training course.

And if you'll allow me to pick a tiny little nit of my own, it's overtime, not overwork.
smithinjapan at 08:44 PM JST - 2nd July

cleo: "And if you'll allow me to pick a tiny little nit of my own, it's overtime, not overwork."

I actually wrote the two in there, with overwork intentionally because many Japanese do just that with the overtime. haha.

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with you, and know that even if the topic were more vague here there would be people crowing, as you say, about it. I also think that if the sky's going to fall, it's going to fall... I don't think it will be any sooner on account of this 'information'. So, I agree with you there, too.

Nice chatting, regardless. You remain, as always, one of the TRUE voices of reason on this site.
Sarge at 09:26 PM JST - 2nd July

"working rather than dating"

This should be "working before dating." After all, dating costs money!
jhk at 05:05 AM JST - 3rd July

"working overtime without dating, while management has already left, and gets paid ten times more than you"
cnc at 02:13 PM JST - 4th July

yes...put in lots of overtime now and when youre 40 you will find yourself too busy having loud conversations with yourself, in public, rather than going out on dates.
PepinGalarga at 01:05 PM JST - 5th July

that really sucks man.