Working in the office will be banned after 8 p.m., and with rare exceptions there will be no overtime
When Masahiro Okafuji became chief executive officer of Itochu Corp in 2010, he made improving productivity a top priority so the company could compete against larger rivals in Japan. His approach was the opposite. Working in the office will be banned after 8 p.m., and there will be no overtime except for rare exceptions. Security guards and human resources staff would search Itochu’s office building in Tokyo and tell people to go home. Those who stuck to their desks were told to come early the next day to finish their work and get paid extra.
Tough love worked. A decade later, the company—whose businesses range from the FamilyMart convenience store chain to metals trading—reported a more than fivefold increase in profit per employee from 2010 to 2021, as rising commodity prices and a weak yen boosted its bottom line. extended to To the surprise of the Itochu management, more women employees took maternity leave, had children, and returned to work.
“We planned to increase productivity, but we didn’t know it would affect the birth rate,” says Fumihiko Kobayashi, executive vice president of Itochu.
The trading house has emerged as an unlikely harbinger in stemming the trend of falling birthrates, which the Japanese government and others around the world have tried to reverse without much success. The years since Itochu became CEO of Okafuji saw the fertility rate among full-time employees double, reaching nearly two children per female employee in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022 — far higher than Japan’s current national rate of about 1.3. is more.
The rise in birth rates attracted the attention of Atsuko Muraki, a member of the Itochu board who previously served as director of equal employment and child welfare at Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. She encouraged the company to make the bucking-the-trend data public last year to convey the social message that, for women, raising children and building a career don’t have to be interdependent at each other’s expense. This was followed by mixed reactions. Some criticized Itochu for interfering in the lives of employees and for being insensitive to people with fertility challenges.
Japan has long been known for a work culture in which grueling hours at the office – often evenings spent eating and drinking with work colleagues – make raising a family challenging, especially for female workers. As a result, many women drop out of the workforce to care for children. Itochu’s night work ban eased some of that pressure. And after the COVID-19 pandemic, employees were given the option to work from home for two days a week. The company went even further last year, when it reduced main office hours from eight to six, so people could get out before 3 p.m.
So while becoming pregnant can effectively end a woman’s career in many other Japanese businesses, at Itochu many female workers return because of cut working hours and a day-care center the company set up near their office. came, which made it easier. Juggling a job and taking care of the kids.
Itochu’s experience may offer some particularly important lessons for Japan and its neighbors in East Asia grappling with declining fertility rates. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is trying to stem the decline of a rapidly rising birth rate, which he calls a “national crisis” that could lead to a shortage of 11 million workers by 2040 and a collapse of the country’s pension and health care systems. Is. A new agency for children and families was created in April to address these challenges, while in June Kishida pledged $25 billion in new policies to encourage people to have more children.
Outside Japan, falling fertility rates threaten to affect Asia’s economic power. South Korea has had one of the world’s lowest birth rates for years, which is slated to drop to 0.78 in 2022. It also has the highest proportion of women aged 25 to 39 out of the workforce in developed countries, believed to be partly due to a lack of child care. Another factor in low fertility.
China’s population has shrunk for the first time in six decades due to mounting financial stress and a drop in child support, handing over the crown of the world’s most populous country to India.
It’s no secret that the punitive, unsupportive corporate culture in these Asian economies has taken a toll on women’s desire to have children. Many people working in China’s tech industry lament the overtime culture, known as “996” – working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, came under widespread criticism in 2019 for calling “996” a blessing.
A Chinese company recently tried to ease that toxic work culture. Online travel agency Trip.com Group Ltd. in June said it would offer employees an annual 10,000-yuan ($1,379) childcare allowance for each newborn child up to the age of 5, in addition to work-from-home and assisted-breeding options. will offer subsidy. benefits.
While business houses such as Itochu’s epitomize Japan’s post-war economic miracle, they are also emblematic of the country’s corporate culture characterized by male dominance, long working hours and after-work drinking parties with bosses and customers. The pressure to join is characteristic. Few expected that major companies such as Itochu, Mitsui, Mitsubishi or Sumitomo would break away from the decades-old ethos of excessive dedication to work and lead the way for a better work-life balance.
So when Anna Furuya returned to her job at Itochu’s textile division from maternity leave in 2013, in the early days of the company’s working-hour reform, she felt more of an outsider whenever she left for home than her co-workers. It felt like “The change hadn’t happened yet, so I was in the minority using it and felt guilty for leaving early,” she says.
The now 38-year-old, who these days works in Itochu’s corporate division, says she is “incredibly happy” with her life as a working mother. Furuya sometimes starts his day at the office around 6:30 am and leaves around 4 pm. She then watches her 9-year-old son do his homework while she prepares dinner. She says, “For people like me who are raising kids, it is really necessary to get up early in the morning to make our life efficient.”
Other Japanese enterprises have taken note of this. Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co said earlier this year that starting this month it would pay up to 100,000 yen ($700) to employees who take some of the workload off colleagues while on child care leave. And Recruit Holdings Co., the Japanese parent company of job search and review sites Indeed.com and Glassdoor, allows employees to work from home most of the time and provides additional days off in addition to statutory holidays.
Larger companies are generally more proactive in introducing flexibility in work than smaller companies. Government data shows that about a third of large companies in Japan with more than 1,000 employees offer flexible working hours, while less than 10% of companies with more than 100 employees offer flexible working hours.
Yet some question whether Itochu’s success can be replicated more widely. Raising a child requires both money and time. Business houses provide some of the highest paying jobs in Japan. The average annual income of someone working in Itochu in 2023 is 17.3 million yen, nearly four times the national average.
“The biggest reason for the decline in the birth rate is that people with low economic status do not have the financial means to have families or children,” says Yasuko Hasal Kobayashi, associate professor of Asian studies at Ritsumeikan University. “Itochu represents the wealthy in Japan. Employees and their partners are more likely to be earners who can afford it.”
Still, the so-called shosha male stereotype of the male corporate elite no longer fits Itochu’s workforce. The company says its flexibility and support has attracted more women to join and fill mission-critical positions. Male employees also appear to be more connected to their families—half of them have taken paternity leave, compared to 14% of male employees nationwide.
“I don’t feel guilty about leaving early anymore, because that applies to everyone, not just moms,” says Furuya, a working mother in Etochu.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV Staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)