Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has said she functions on just two to four hours of sleep a night, raising concerns about her attitude to work-life balance in a country whose workers are already chronically exhausted.
Pointing to her dark circles, Takaichi told lawmakers that she survives on minimal sleep – a habit she shares with her political heroine Margaret Thatcher – after being asked how she intends to solve the problem of extremely long working hours in Japan, writes the British Guardian.
The prime minister already drew criticism last week when she called aides to a 3am meeting to prepare for a budget hearing that started six hours later. This happened only a few weeks after, celebrating her election as the first female prime minister in the history of Japan, she said that she would “work, work, work, work and work”.
– I sleep for about two hours now, four hours at the most – she told the representatives. “Probably not good for my skin.”
Excessive work
For years, Japan has struggled with a deeply entrenched corporate culture in which workers are expected to work overtime and socialize with colleagues in the evenings.
Overwork has been linked to an increase in karoshi – death due to overwork – and a reduced ability for exhausted couples to contribute to an already low birth rate.
There are fears that Takaichi may expect workers to work even harder to spur economic growth, given that her administration is also considering increasing the overtime limit.
The Prime Minister, however, claims that any changes will benefit the workers.
– If we manage to create conditions in which people can balance childcare and family care with work, and at the same time have time for rest and leisure – that would be ideal – she said.
Work “like a horse”
After she was elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party in early October, which later led her to the position of prime minister, Takaichi said that she was “giving up the concept of work-life balance” for herself, but told her party colleagues that they should “work like a horse.”
Her strenuous pace also caused concern among her political colleagues. Former economy minister Ken Saito said he was “genuinely concerned” about her health, while opposition lawmaker Katsuhito Nakajima urged her to get more sleep – which the prime minister met with a smile and a nod.
Although few Japanese sleep enough, hardly anyone falls into Takaichi’s “maximum four hours” category. A survey released on World Sleep Day in March found that Japanese residents sleep an average of 7 hours and 1 minute on weekdays – 38 minutes less than the international average and less than the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada.
Takaichi, truth be told, hasn’t had much time to rest since taking over at the end of October. Just a few days after taking office, she went to the ASEAN summit in Malaysia, then hosted Donald Trump in Tokyo, and met with Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in South Korea.
The deepening of the dispute with China, after its recent statements that Japan could participate in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait, could bring it more sleepless nights, the Guardian concludes.
(Vijesti.ba)
