COMPLETION REPORT
Shalini Sanmargaraja
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia
Faculty of Green Technology and Engineering

Sociological Impact of Work Culture on Japanese Middle Income Population
Japan is one of the countries which has the longest working hours in the world. This can be seen in most Japanesecompanies which require their employees to work for more than eighty (80) hours of overtime every monthvoluntarily. Due to their loyalty and dedication towards their work, they pay less attention to their family life which
will eventually lead Japan to a ‘super-aged nation’ in years to come. Therefore, this research aims to identify the
drawbacks of their work culture towards the development of the nation. The objectives of this research are to (1)identify the relationship between the middle-class work culture in Japan towards the development of theorganizations, (2) to identify the negative impacts of Japanese’s work culture to the society, and (3) to determine thevalues of life which will be taught to the younger generations. This research was conducted in Kanto and Kyushu
area. 900 sets of questionnaires were distributed physically and through google forms but only 345 responses werereceived, hence the response rate is 38.33%. Convenience sampling methods were used whereby the respondents
are selected based on their availability and willingness to participate in this research. From the results obtained fromthe questionnaires, is it found that the relationship between the middle-class work culture in Japan is mediumly
correlated with the development of the organizations. Most of the respondents strongly agree that they always facedhigh pressure due to tough jobs and they feel that the long working hours produce waste and inefficient humancapital allocation. Respondents believed that long working hours push away women from contributing to thenation’s economy. In addition to this, respondents feel that they had abandoned their old parents due to their busy
schedule and they find it difficult to segregate their working time and their family time. Due to their hectic work
culture, almost all the respondents agreed that Japan has a low birth rate and a rapidly aging population, hence theJapanese population is declining. Respondents believe that they cannot produce more babies because there are many
sexless marriages in Japan. A large group of respondents agrees that many of their colleagues, friends, or
acquaintances are still unmarried because they are not ready to take up extra responsibilities. Due to this situation,
they realized that Japan needs to bring in more foreign workers in the future as Japan's workforce will decline by
20% in the next 20 years. They realized that karoshi and karojisatsu are increasing among the young adults resulting
from the failure in achieving key performance indicators (KPIs) in their organizations. Almost everyone agreed thatfamily values and importance of the family time are taught to the younger generations. Although the Japanese
government tighten the rules regarding the extra working hours and introduced some new policies, the government
should award the compliance organizations on the latest rules in terms of tax exemptions, providing additional leave
policies, and others to promote a healthy work-life balance among the Japanese.

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Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
Shalini Sanmargaraja, Impacts of The Japanese Middle-Class Work Culture on the Development of the
Nation, 5th ABRA International Conference on Quality of Life, 15-16 December 2021, Langkawi, Malaysia.

Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
Shalini Sanmargaraja, Gobi Kanadasan, Naoto Mine, Hirotake Kanisawa (2021). The Japanese Middle-ClassWork Culture on the Development of the Nation. Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal. Vol. 6, No.18.
(DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6i18.3054)

Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)-2-