I kind of doubt this will be adopted practically in Japan. The old people get time off and leave work early in Japan by privilege and the young break themselves and any rule they need to permit it. The young would even lie about taking time off to make the boss look good, even taking less pay to sell the lie. Who can have kids when you already have to change everyone's diaper.

Fascinating. Is the loyalty reciprocated?

If the subordinates have to lie about taking time off, and intentionally accept lower pay for the benefit of their superiors - then no, it's definitely not reciprocated. I'd argue the subordinates are straight up being abused in this case.

I don't think reciprocation can be analyzed in a dynamic setting like that.

Another version of this is, what happens if the younger generation doesn't take the deal -- do they get fired? Keeping them on is a form of reciprocation, even if bleak.

Likewise, is there an implicit deal where when the young get old, they get to work less? If so, it is eventually reciprocated.

I do think it is not reciprocated instantaneously.

What you describe as reciprocation is actually transgenerational exploitation. Be forcefully taken-from when you are young, and then forcefully take (from the young) when you are old.

It should be unidirectional giving. Give to your children, and save for yourself. Retire to an assisted living facility, don't become a burden. Hope to die as soon as you become a burden. If you decide to die, because you are done living, I firmly believe that you can die.

Their view is a product of hard times. Your view is a product of good times. Theirs is the observation that people will be more committed to work hard to make things better, if they can hope to eventually rest and partake in some of the improvements. Yours is basically "fuck off, YOLO and people should just have fun". Both views have some good points behind them, but then yours is unsustainable over more than a generation or two, while GP's view is the one that sustains and enables yours.

Complicating things is the fact that for the fist 10+ years, children are extreme burden, so the "transgenerational exploitation" is actually done by the younger generation, even if they didn't mean it. That's the cost of bringing them into existence. It's not fair for parents to keep their children forever in their debt, but let's not pretend we don't owe anything to our parents and their generation either.

Parents chose to have children, how many (i.e. how much their attention is divided), how they'll raise them (with near absolute authority), and pick 50% of the kids' genes (via the other parent). Children chose nothing. They owe nothing.

It's selfish to demand your children be personally responsible for you.

Making young people miserable under the crushing weight of caring for themselves and their irresponsible elders won't inspire them to produce and share grandkids.

Consider that in Japan, refusal care for the elders would be considered an act of irresponsibility.

You are right that there should be no crushing weight inflicted. Not all of Japanese worklife has the exploitative nature described upthread. And indeed, seems to be decreasing significantly from the 1980s. For instance, the following situation is no longer likely:

"A boss is working late, so the employees under the boss keep working without being requested to. If the boss disagrees with their decision to stay, then instead of directly telling them they may leave (because they may feel obligated politely refuse as long as the boss is still working), the boss will 'go home' by walking around the block. This gives the employees time to leave, before the boss returns to continue working late."

Consider that in Japan, doing what is best for a group of which you are part is more important than self-interest. There is some modern trend to a little more individualism, in part as reaction to some past and current excesses, and somewhat due to influences of foreign cultures. In general, it seems to be trending toward balance while still keeping a lot of importance of your in-group.

I'm not saying you are wrong here, but I think it is important to ground all of these old:young dynamics in culture. 'Subordinate', to me, is a very western lens and looks past the crucial point that the Japanese view power structures with far more optimism than we do.

Japan clearly has its own problems, but honour and duty play a significant part in their culture and, admirably, contributes to the creation of a high-trust society.

Arguably, the Japanese view a society that takes care of the elderly with respect as a benefit to themselves. In the other hand, it is a characteristic of Western society to see every moment as an opportunity to make immediate profits, even at the expense of their own future.

In this case, it's taking care of the elderly to the huge detriment of the young. And when you do that, you kinda lose the future.

Exactly. What sane grandparent would want to live at the cost of cannibalizing their grandchildren? What the sandwich generation received as kids, they need to pay that forward, not back.

For one, I don't want a long life. I want to live as long as I'm not a burden. Don't want to burn down in my final years all that I will have built up for my kids and their kids.

Now, they say that anime is not real life in Japan, and it's true; however it absolutely reflects (I dare say: indoctrinates viewers with) cultural elements of Japan. And this "fuck up your kids' lives so you can take care of your parents" is so characteristic. A good example (of this terrible phenomenon) is in Lovely Complex, where Nobu-chan effectively needs to abandon her sweetheart Nakao-kun, just so she can care for her grandmother, who's about to move to Hokkaido. The most heart-wrenching part is where Nakao and Nobu's grandma sit at the dining table, and Nakao is guilt-tripped into actively encouraging Nobu's grandma to travel to Hokkaido and to rob him of his beloved Nobu. Fuck all that, seriously.

I agree with you, wholeheartedly. Children should not be guilted into taking care of their elders.

My parents are immigrants from Southeast Asia and the culture is similar, but it's children taking care of their parents (in all facets, including financially). People ask me why I'm not rich despite making a Silicon Valley salary without living in Silicon Valley... Well, I pay two rents (mine and my parents'). Yes, I know they can move in with me to save money, yes I could just say no and leave them in the lurch, yes I could do xyz, but this is the reality.

I do have the sense of duty towards them, because they took care of me and my siblings, and we wanted for nothing, despite not being an affluent family. But the tradition stops with me. I personally would never make my kids take care of me like that, and I would rather be euthanized early than have my family's last memories of me being bedridden, changing my bed pan, etc. And I'm taking all measures necessary to ensure that I leave my family a financial legacy (life insurance, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, etc).

You forget that every young person will become old later (if alive). That's what they consider when looking at the future.

Old people have had a lifetime of experience and opportunity to build themselves up for old age. Young people have had nothing, and without that opportunity, they'll be reduced to (metaphorically) cannibalising the next generation.

What a simple minded and reductionist way of thinking...

"A society grows great when the old plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit."

Hmm I'm sure I would view that kind of social pressure as a straightjacket and I would have a very fringey and mediocre life in such a society.

I'm just someone who is different and western civilization applauds individualism to some extent (except highly religious communities, army, etc).

For people like me such societies are pretty cruel.

The concept of unconditional love is unknown to many cultures.

In the Netherlands children are a selfless act they are not a pension fund for their parents.

Marxism is one of many views to bring to the table.

It’s basically the same model as social security is supposed to be. It’s reciprocated societally by you putting in lots when you’re young and then you get the benefits when you’re old.

That's tremendously reductionistic.

Not really. Societies all over structure taking care of old retired people in different ways.

They all generally depend on the model of there being population growth though in order to keep the burden on the younger generations tolerable.

Yes, but it matters how much it intrudes on your personal life.

Paying social security (and saving for retirement) when you are young, and getting (some) coverage when you are old, is one thing. It's "only" money.

Having your time, availability, emotional capacity, mental health sucked dry by the elderly in your own family is an entirely different thing. Raising small children is an extreme challenge that requires all your resources; young and middle-aged Japanese are entirely reasonable not to start families.

I recommend reading this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich_generation#Other_chal...

> Raising small children is an extreme challenge that requires all your resources

Indeed, and in the past, this would've been offset by everyone around the parents - the old, the young, the other families and the childless aunts and uncles - all chiming in to share the burden. Social security & retiremenet is basically an attempt to give a substitute for that, for the village, but things are getting more and more pathological with each generation.

Someone close to me told me they chose to have two kids because they didn't want the burden and responsibility of caring for their parents to fall solely onto one child.

It still might, eventually. One kid will live too far away, the other will have family with small children, etc. and the burden will end up falling on the one who's closest and/or doesn't have kids of their own.

“A society grows great when the old plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit”

Interestingly, a big company actually did an experiment in Japan itself: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say...

I worked for this company and they are a sponsor of NPR, but thanks for the link? Was the study conducted and audited by 3rd parties? I had to print from outside the office during PTO sometimes also.

That was largely true 10 to 20 years ago and is still true in some pockets of society.

The younger have been giving the middle finger to these kind of companies for a while now. Either literally, by proxy, or going elsewhere and/or quit the whole corporate culture altogether and doing "shit" jobs with more flexibility instead (they feel screwed either way, at least they'll do it on their own term)

This 4 days week measure has a realistic chance IMHO, otherwise these gov job will stay the bottom of the barrel in the new generation's perception.

I have a friend, Mai (let's say), who's from Japan (and is as terrified as I am at the country's work culture). She texted her high school friend who's still there and working in an office, day-in and day-out, and Mai asked her if she's hanging out or talking to any of her old friends. The friend said "You're my friend Mai :) I only talk with you".

She only sends her a text on Christmas and her birthday, that's the extent of their yearly interaction!

I also anecdotaly know a number of people in that bucket. I don't know for your friend, but for many it comes down to not caring that much about having "friends".

They will prioritize their hobbies over basically anything, including socialization (they can still socialize inside their hobby group, but they might not be "friends" in the traditional way)

I'd see it as the same line of thinking as DINK, except with a single income and no fucks given about romantic relationships. Of course the situation could be different if they were super affluent, but as they have to prioritize they choose what makes them happy regardless of social norms.

Fair enough, I like having friends but have a hard time figuring out when to fit them into my schedule.

In this case, I know my friend's friend talked about constant overtime and not having a life outside of the office.

I sent Mai this video of the crazy day-in-the-life of a salaryman in Japan [1], and we both felt it was crazy, but she said "I actually think he likes it". Some people are cut out for overtime every day but I know I'd go crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tmjXp_AYg0

---

Unrelated, but I (sort of) wish English had an obviative case. It's hard to give a story about a friend and their friend of the same gender in English without ambiguity, hence why I gave [person 1] a name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obviative

Good to know about the obviative case, that there's a name for these type of things.

When writing docs in code recently, it struck me as a little odd that pronouns can be used as a shorthand when referring to a singular and a plural, but can't be if they have the same plurality.

E.g. "When the name and errors exist, and it is non-empty and they are capitalized, ..."

Speaking of Japanese, I learned from that friend that they don't use 2nd or 3rd person pronouns that much at all, preferring to repeat the person's name. For third person it's strange to my ears, but it was very surprising to hear my name repeated in second person!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns

Yes. 2nd and 3rd pronouns tend to be harder to use in social contexts.

You usually convey a bunch of info and intent when referring to someone (how close you're to that person and their social position relative to you), and pronouns don't easily cover that range. It can be done but requires more finesse.

That's perhaps why pronouns are so tainted (You=anata has become the most stereotypical way to call one's husband)

The better choice is usually to omit the subject and just imply who you're talking about. Using their name is the second best alternative.

The issue is in corporate jobs (including tech) Friday is a very relaxed day. If you are working a shorter week than everyone else, you end up doing the same amount of work in less time for less money.

I did this a few years ago at a company I was a partner in. We had a busy season where folks did overtime. The expectation for salaried employees was a 4-day, 35 hour week, but during that 3-4 week period, it may surge more.

35 hour weeks used to be pretty common in a lot of businesses before the overtime rules were watered down.

My experience, especially post-COVID, is that meetings on Friday are discouraged and nobody blinks at noon departures. Etc. Not quite a four-day work week but came pretty close for a lot of folks.

Agreed, the Friday is essentially the day with the highest pay:effort ratio. It's a 20% salary for relatively little effort.

And given a ratio of 80% spending and 20% saving, that Friday can be the difference between living paycheck-to-paycheck and early retirement.

Essentially if you make 5k a month, spend 4k and invest 1k at an 8% ROI from age 25, you'll have:

180k, 570k and 1400k at age 35, 45 and 55 respectively. If you live off of 4% of that, you'll have a passive income of $0.6k, $1.9k and $4.6k respectively at the same ages.

In other words working that relaxed Friday from age 25 and investing the proceeds, will get you to the point that you passively earn the same as you did working Monday through Thursday by age 52 or so, without working again. And that's true for any income, at those same ratios.

For many tech jobs the salaries are so high that you can feasibly get to early retirement in your 30s.

There's a lot to be said about the power of a 3-day weekend though. It's not just that you get an extra day of weekend, you also lose a day of work. Expressed as a ratio, is when it clicked for me: You go from 5:2 to 4:3, or in other words: 2.5 days of work for every 1 day of leisure -> 1.3 days of work for every 1 day of leisure. It's approximately twice as good a ratio. And you really feel it, you feel rested and refreshed.

I'm still doing 5d a week. For me the holy grail is to find a company that does 36h contracts with fulltime pay, where you have a 4 day week every other week. All the benefits of full pay, the occasional relaxed friday, but also two long weekends each month allowing trips, hobbies, projects, rest etc.

This and...

I remember when in France, the work week went from 39 to 35, that was 35h work week paid 39 - no pay cuts.

Now I get that the economy/job market isn't like it was then, what with all the layoffs to protect shareholder from growth dropping from +9% to only +5% (arbitrary example from one company).

But I am baffled at how quickly employees seem to have internalized the idea that reduced hours require reduced pay before even getting a chance for any negotiations. With all the value that's being produced, we're just accepting that it continue to be unfairly distributed, and that workers see no benefit (or barely) from the increases in productivity.

I'm sorry, if a pay cut is required, or condensed hours are required, it's no social progress, just lip service at best to exploit people more under the guise of flexibility.

I'd prefer having fridays officially off instead of being stuck at my pc not doing much work. If I'm already not working most fridays, why is it such a big deal to just make it official, get paid the same and not have to warm a seat poitnlessly?

Because someone right behind you will happily take that deal for 32 hours of work for 38 hours of pay. And someone behind them will do it for 35. And someone behind them will…

Until employers run out of qualified someones willing to work for less, they don’t have much long-term incentive to pay you 25% more than someone else is willing to take for the same job.

Yeah, good point. I work in games, there's always an army of youngsters willing to put up with anything to break into the industry. I shouldn't be surprised...

And I know only all too well employers will continue even at the point of hiring unqualified someones willing to work for less...

But I'm wondering if there is more at play. Like is the web so full of HR BS that people don't know better? Is the economy really that bad or is it a self fulfilling prophecy because corporate scare tactics work?

And don't get me started on LLMs confidently repeating the same one sided HR BS when you ask anything about work conditions, and then claiming it intends to provide a comprehensive list of unbiased potential solutions to try, conveniently leaving out the last one which should be if all else fails start sending resumes...

Anyway, I'm seeing more unions spin up and more strikes this year, so I guess that gives me a bit of hope at least.

Yep, completely agree. After having our kid both me and my wife work 80% so we have one extra day at home. Huge.

Not sure about rest of the world, but here in Switzerland mothers often take Wednesdays off - first years of school its not on Wednesdays, and then it starts with just mornings. Wife has it and she repeatedly claimed that she will never go back to 5 days workweek.

Most employers, be it private or state ones have 0 issues with this setup. 20% less, maybe 15% net income less ain't that huge of a deal - if it is, something ain't right in your finances anyway. What is gained is very well worth it, time with parents is crucial in many ways for small kids and if that window is missed you can't make it up later. Catching up with stuff like bureaucracy which is unavailable during weekends is possible only during such time.

Its true that having kids fundamentally changed my view on wealth and how much should I pursue higher paychecks, life is darn short anyway and double that with kids. I am switching to 90% contract from 1.1.2025 - working usual 5 days a week but having altogether 48.5 MDs of paid vacation (90% of 25MDs I had on 100% + 0.5 MD per each week in year, our HR recipe). It feels like being a teacher but on corporate paycheck (and work intensity). Even with 4 mortgages (for 2 properties) and no family to help financially if we hit hardships, this was a nobrainer. Other aspect would be retiring in 60 (max 61), but that's too far down the line to care much about now.

I am looking very much into spending that time on family and myself. One needs to be happy or at least content with its own life to make others happy too, and thats not achievable easily in rat races. For such benefits alone I don't care about higher paychecks, money only can get you so far in life.

> 20% less, maybe 15% net income less ain't that huge of a deal - if it is, something ain't right in your finances anyway

or else, something maybe horribly broken in your country.

I'm happy for you, that you can easily dismiss 15% net income. Try that in Hungary, where generally two full time jobs together are nearly insufficient just to stay afloat.

> One needs to be happy or at least content with its own life to make others happy too, and thats not achievable easily in rat races

Very true, which is why mental health issues are rampant in the Eastern Bloc.

Doesn't help that the average attitude of people here of mental health is that it doesn't exist.

My family used to believe, adn they still do, that the only reason you'd go to psychiatrist is because you're "weird" and that only crazies who belong in mental hospital go there...

A long time ago when I was an intern at a defense contractor my boss was a woman who had worked her whole career 30 hours a week and was very happy about it, kept it up even when her kids were graduating high school.

I also enjoyed the 9/80 schedule there, nominally 9 hour days with a little flexibility with every other Friday off for everyone.

Prior to retirement, I cut back to 32 hrs/week at 80% pay (well, closer to 85% because I kept my full health). I backfilled the pay cut by beginning a small 401k withdrawl.

All of a sudden, every Thursday evening felt like the start of vacation!

It sort of happened with me by default. Probably didn't take as much advantage as I should. And "retirement" is much less retirement than it could be.

I worked out a 9hr/4 days week with my current company, I get more work done in those 36 hours than I did in the 40 hours before because I’m more relaxed after a long weekend and considerably happier

I took that option 4 years ago and wouldn't go back now. It's not worth the increase in money vs the life improvement.

That's only because you have enough money.

There's plenty of people who are still financially short after a 40h job.

> You lose some money, but gain more family time and sanity. Having Friday to finish chores and being able to enjoy the weekend unstressed is huge

during my last job search i was thinking exactly the same. id' hapily give up the usual 10-15% pay rise i look for when hopping from one job to another, maybe even consider giving up a 5-15% in order to get a 4-days work week.

I'm not rich by any means, but right now in my life "more money" don't appeal to me that much but more free time certainly does.

Too many people in the US are living paycheck to paycheck on hourly wages, many with two people in the household working full-time. This is becoming normal. A 4-day workweek will hurt them.

not if they get to work 4 days and get paid 5