[HN Gopher] Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for go...
___________________________________________________________________
Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government
employees
Author : amichail
Score : 341 points
Date : 2024-12-06 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| 7thaccount wrote:
| That sounds....huge. I know many working couples where one would
| probably take that in a heartbeat. 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, not to
| mention clocking out early each day to be able to pick up your
| kid and not have to get back to work or whatever.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| Yep, completely agree. After having our kid both me and my wife
| work 80% so we have one extra day at home. Huge.
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| chachacharge wrote:
| 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.
| encoderer wrote:
| Fascinating. Is the loyalty reciprocated?
| wubrr wrote:
| 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.
| l33tbro wrote:
| 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.
| coliveira wrote:
| 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.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| 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.
| jefbyokyie wrote:
| 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.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| 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.
| liontwist wrote:
| Marxism is one of many views to bring to the table.
| metacritic12 wrote:
| 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.
| jefbyokyie wrote:
| 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.
| kortilla wrote:
| 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.
| maest wrote:
| That's tremendously reductionistic.
| feyman_r wrote:
| Interestingly, a big company actually did an experiment in
| Japan itself:
| https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-
| say...
| cavisne wrote:
| 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| 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.
| colechristensen wrote:
| 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.
| blendo wrote:
| 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!
| EasyMark wrote:
| 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
| MBCook wrote:
| I wish these stories would say if the hours are changing or not.
|
| 32 hours, 4 days a week seems better to me. But if all you do is
| take 40 hours and make it 10 hour days I'm not that much happier.
| alienreborn wrote:
| I would still take 40 hrs in 4 days vs 5 days. Full extra day
| is a blessing.
| Filligree wrote:
| It's Japan, so they alread have 10 if not 12 hour days, a lot
| of which isn't work in any sense. Cutting day out of the week
| also means removing the near-obligatory after-work
| 'socialising'.
| FigurativeVoid wrote:
| I have had friends and family that work 4x10s or even 3x12s and
| they all vastly prefer the trade-off of more hours per work day
| for fewer days.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'd still likely take the option, I just think it's
| unnecessary. Productivity is ridiculously up since the 8 hour
| day was established, even since just two decades ago.
|
| Tasks expand to take up the available time, even if
| usefulness doesn't.
|
| I suspect you'd see little loss in cutting down to
| 32/hr/week, and I suspect it would be more than made up for
| by the gains of giving people that extra day. So it may be a
| net positive.
|
| I guess my main concern is that a lot of companies (not
| speaking about Japan here, just the US) might decide to use
| four days a week as a way to make people crunch four days
| thinking that having three days off would make up for that.
| And things wouldn't really be any better.
| bsimpson wrote:
| That's the unfortunate bit about salaries.
|
| If you took a 4x per week job, you'd usually get a 20% pay
| reduction; however, many jobs could be compressed to 4 days
| without any loss in productivity.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I did 4x10 and I found it horrible. During the four days, I
| didn't get to do anything other than work and commute. And
| the stupid thing was that my output (and that of my coworkers
| as far as I could tell) was not really higher with 10 hours
| than with 8 hours. Three day weekends are nice though.
| notatoad wrote:
| i've worked 10s before, and it's alternately amazing and
| terrible. at an office job, answering emails and going to
| meetings, 10hrs is completely beyond my tolerance level.
|
| but if you've got a project, and you can just put your head
| down and work, then 10s are really nice.
| FigurativeVoid wrote:
| I agree. It's nice if you have something you can get into
| flow on.
|
| The biggest issue with 10s is commute time. If you work 10s
| with an hour+ commute, that's just awful.
| elijaht wrote:
| Wouldn't 10's be better for a longer commute? Need to do
| it 4 vs 5 days?
| notatoad wrote:
| less overall commute time, yeah, but it means your day
| might be literally nothing but work and sleep.
|
| probably not long-term sustainable.
| anyfoo wrote:
| I disagree, hard.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > But if all you do is take 40 hours and make it 10 hour days
| I'm not that much happier
|
| One fewer day of needing to context-switch would be a major
| life improvement.
| taeric wrote:
| From everyone I have ever known that was able to do the fewer
| days, even with same hours, it is still a game changer.
| siavosh wrote:
| Curious how this plays out and comments from anyone who works
| there now. From what I've read about Japanese work culture,
| there are many perks/benefits offered but most do not take it
| cause it's considered selfish etc.
| cableshaft wrote:
| One year a company did mandatory 'half-day Fridays' during the
| summer where the company closed after a half day on Friday.
|
| But in order to do that we had to work 9 hour days Monday -
| Thursday.
|
| That extra hour those four days felt torturous, so it meant
| four days of feeling awful just so I could leave a few hours
| early on a day in which most people (and myself) already
| weren't working too hard anyway.
|
| I hated it.
|
| This was at a very low output insurance company, btw, so there
| often wasn't huge pressure to get things done quickly (new
| software releases were once a quarter, and IT would complain
| that two months lead time wasn't enough time to provision a
| single new server that was a clone of an existing server, as an
| example of how slow things moved), and the days dragged on way
| long.
|
| I worked more high pressure startups before where I was often
| there for 9 or more hours by necessity to meet deadlines that
| didn't feel so bad.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I had a job that offered your choice of 4x10 or 5x8.
|
| Many people took the 4x10 but then discovered they couldn't
| handle 10 hour days every day. Like you said, the last 1-2
| hours were so unproductive they might as well have been not
| working.
|
| So some people didn't even try to work those last 2 hours.
| They'd sit at their desks and watch things or play games,
| pretending to work when anyone came in. Kind of ruined it for
| everyone.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| not that much happier, no, but it's non-zero. esp with commute
| time, arranging lunch outside the home, parking or public
| transportation costs, childcare costs and all sorts of other
| little expenses that just vanish when you can stay home. Plus a
| 4x10 schedule doesn't result in a pay cut the way going from
| 5x8 to 4x8 would. My mom worked 4x10 as a nurse my entire
| childhood and loved the extra day.
| nine_k wrote:
| One of my previous jobs did just that: 10-hours days, 4 days a
| week. First as an experiment for a month. They found our that
| performance has grown across the board (engineering, sales,
| support, etc) and then made it permanent; everybody rejoiced.
|
| It was so much easier since then.
| WillyWonkaJr wrote:
| 100% -- We've been promised more free time due to AI. Probably
| better to cash in now before this promise is rescinded.
| MBCook wrote:
| We were with mechanical automation too. And computers. And
| every other advance.
|
| Things improve, jobs take less time to do, so they give us
| more. But it's the same number of hours so pay doesn't go up.
|
| We all get screwed.
| eikenberry wrote:
| For many high focus, mentally taxing jobs going from 8 to 10
| hour days won't make a difference as you're already done after
| 4-6 hours anyways.
| mrweasel wrote:
| If they are just compress the 40 hours down to 4 days, then
| this won't work. I don't know how it works in Japan, but how
| the hell are you suppose to drop off and pick up kids with a 10
| hour day, are schools and daycare even available 11-12 hours
| per day? They'd be increasing the stress four days a week to an
| ungodly level where families won't be able to function.
|
| Most of these four-day workweeks are almost always bullshit,
| because they insist on keeping the same hours. I hope that's
| not the case here. Some companies have been experimenting with
| just slashing a day a week completely and it always increase
| productivity, retention and happiness.
| FigurativeVoid wrote:
| Clarifying point: this is the Tokyo local government not a
| national policy.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| And even in Tokyo it only applies to metropolitan (roughly,
| state) workers, not the ward (roughly, city) governments.
|
| According to the data below, there's anywhere from 33k to 161k
| metropolitan employees depending on where you draw the line.
|
| https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/tosei/hodohappyo/press/2024/01...
| antisthenes wrote:
| Too little too late. It may have an impact on the next
| generation, in 10-20 years, if at all.
|
| Also, for government employees only...
| mikestew wrote:
| The best time to plant a tree, and all...
|
| Surely your argument isn't, "at this point, why bother to do
| anything?"
| antisthenes wrote:
| > Surely your argument isn't, "at this point, why bother to
| do anything?"
|
| Surely if the effort exceeds the value of the outcome, then
| it shouldn't be done?
| kirubakaran wrote:
| You haven't made an argument for that point at all
| matt3210 wrote:
| Better: work with families to alternate remote days so one parent
| stays home with the kids and no need for childcare service
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| Do you really think that being remote is "staying home with the
| kids"? You're physically in the same building as them, but
| either you're not really working, or your kids don't actually
| need an adult to be there because they are grown up anyway, so
| no childcare is needed because they go to school.
| writtenAnswer wrote:
| Many jobs might be in-person especially in Japan
| hunglee2 wrote:
| its got to help, but the main thing Japan needs to do is de-
| Toykoify the country. Urban density is probably the main causes
| for decline in fertility, and Tokyo is the worst example globally
| of runaway urban agglomeration.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| People choose to live in Tokyo. They tried to give a buttloads
| of incentives to move to the countryside, but few take them,
| because... city life is just easier, more convenient and more
| fun. But I still agree, it might affect it in a roundabout way.
|
| When you live in a city, you have more opportunities to do
| anything else other than having children. Also, Japan's
| fertility rate isn't that much lower than Canadas. They just
| got to the problem earlier than anyone else, so trying to
| resolve it with any possible means. The biggest problem still
| continues though -- there's no real reason or incentive to have
| more than 2 children, other than "for the good of the society".
| And women are less likely to sacrifice bare minimum of 6 years
| of their lives to give birth to 3 children. Especially when
| they can do... literally anything else.
|
| Every educated girl friend of mine thinks exactly the same way
| as well. Some had a child or two, but more than that it's just
| a burden to the couple. I'm obviously simplifying things, and
| once the third child is born, they're loved and etc. But it's
| going to be a very hard sell for anyone.
| Hilift wrote:
| Depopulation resulted in an oversupply of nine million housing
| vacancies outside the cities. Tokyo pays people a million yen
| per child to move out of the city. It looks like the population
| plateaued about 10 years ago and is trending down slightly.
| https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/21671/toky...
| pamelafox wrote:
| Would schools and childcare providers also have 4-day workweeks?
| I really appreciate that I have 5 days of childcare now, as I
| find it exhausting to be 24/7 parenting two lil kids for two days
| straight (the weekends). If the norm was 4-day workweeks, I would
| pay my nanny overtime for Fridays. And then yes, maybe I'd get
| chores done on Friday! Currently, chores just don't get done
| ever. :D
| pamelafox wrote:
| " It separately announced another policy that will allow
| parents with children in grades one to three in elementary
| schools to trade off a bit of their salary for the option to
| clock out early."
|
| This is really nice, this was the option that I wanted for my
| first kid. I would want this from the day they were born
| though, not just grades 1-3. It helps with breastfeeding
| scheduling.
| sahila wrote:
| What about the nanny wanting a 4 day work week, and what if
| they have children of their own?
| pamelafox wrote:
| Indeed! My nanny does have kids of her own. So I would either
| pay her overtime or I would find additional childcare for the
| 5th day.
|
| I'm just pointing this out because I hear "4 day workweek"
| talked about a lot, but it's never clear to me if folks mean
| that _everyone_ is getting those 4 days, including childcare
| providers or teachers, and if that 's actually what folks
| want. People in this thread talk about getting chores done,
| but I'm not getting any chores done if I'm taking care of my
| lil kids, I'm just getting an even messier house. :D
| WillyWonkaJr wrote:
| Japan is forecast to still have 50 million people in 2120. I
| wouldn't call this a population crisis. With some rewilding it
| could be quite pleasant! I suspect companies are afraid of not
| growing, and governments are afraid to cut spending.
|
| Source: https://www.jcer.or.jp/english/new-population-projection-
| how...
| jorblumesea wrote:
| It's not about the amount of people but your population
| pyramid. If your population halves, expect a lot of pain.
| Especially for the elderly.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Especially for something like Social Security safety nets,
| which relies on a larger younger population paying into it.
| I'm not sure if Japan has an equivalent but I think they do.
| WillyWonkaJr wrote:
| This is a great argument for individual retirement accounts
| rather than using the young to pay for the elderly. In the
| United States, if everyone's social security tax were put
| in an index fund, then everyone would be millionaires upon
| retirement.
|
| There are solutions other than pleading with people to have
| more kids.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| The idea behind OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability
| Insurance), more commonly known as Social Security, is
| not that you retire a millionaire.
|
| It's the US government saying "since we are a wealthy
| nation, we will not let you spend your elderly years
| destitute."
|
| That's it. That's literally all it is. It was meant to
| keep grandpa from being a burden on his family when he
| was too old to work, which in the 1930s meant when you
| were too old to do actual physical labor.
|
| Since then the American public has seen it as a nice
| little bonus they get for living past 65 and has started
| stealing from younger generations in the form of
| sovereign debt in order to maintain that instead of
| treating it like the insurance policy it actually is.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| ==Since then the American public has seen it as a nice
| little bonus they get for living past 65 and has started
| stealing from younger generations in the form of
| sovereign debt in order to maintain that instead of
| treating it like the insurance policy it actually is.==
|
| Social Security has it's own funding stream, a tax on
| wages earned. It does not add to the deficit or increase
| borrowing. If the funding dries up, the benefits are
| reduced. This is the Social Security cliff we hear about
| all the time.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| But there's only so many dollars you can pull from a wage
| earned. A dollar pulled for OASDI is a dollar that can't
| be pulled for anything else, and the person earning said
| dollar will express dissatisfaction at the ballot box if
| you try to make up for that by taking another dollar.
|
| A retirement bonus (which is what OASDI is for millions
| of retired Americans) costs more than a retirement
| insurance plan, because one gets drawn from by everyone,
| while the other can simply be denied if it isn't strictly
| necessary for the person trying to collect the benefit.
|
| A more expensive program requires more tax revenue to
| administer, revenue that could be used on anything else.
| Since we haven't had a real national discussion about
| federal taxes in 30+ years in the US, we now take the
| spending that would be funded with the tax revenues that
| could be freed up by a less-expensive implementation of
| retirement insurance - one that's treated as actual
| insurance - and instead fund it with deficit spending.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I do already put money into a 401k. I will likely be a
| millionaire before retirement, assuming no major
| catastrophes and steady employment in jobs that pay at a
| similar level (adjusted for inflation) before then.
|
| I don't know if the same would be true for most people,
| though (I make significantly more than the average
| household income -- although probably less than a lot of
| people here because I'm not making Silicon Valley money
| -- and I don't have children).
|
| It's an interesting idea worth exploring, but I'm not
| sure if just switching social security money to
| retirement accounts would be sufficient.
|
| Administration and making sure people don't dig into them
| before retirement would potentially be very expensive too
| (although to be fair, I'm sure Social Security
| administration costs are very high also).
|
| Are you aware of any studies that analyze such a
| solution? I imagine there must be something out there.
| bee_rider wrote:
| In the end, it is a matter of the amount of labor done by
| the future generation to support the previous one, vs the
| amount they do for themselves, right? I mean, we can
| account for it however we want, but if every elderly
| person was a millionaire, I guess we'd just have... very
| high demand for the types of doctors that serve the
| elderly.
|
| The money doesn't take care of people, people paid by the
| money do.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I think you also generally need an exponentially
| increasing supply of working people in order for the
| economy to grow exponentially.
| orangecat wrote:
| While I'm skeptical of the current state of Social
| Security, this doesn't quite work. The dollars in your
| account are useful only to the extent that there is stuff
| being produced that you can buy with them. If your
| population is mostly retired people, there's not going to
| be much stuff and prices will be bid up rapidly. So
| great, there's $10 million in your private account,
| unfortunately your home nurse costs $2 million a year.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Numbers in a database, whether they are in the millions
| or billions or trillions, don't mean anything unless
| there are sufficient things/services to buy.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| every social safety net in every country needs to be funded
| somehow and a shrinking population means more debt to take
| on or higher taxes on existing workers. nothing is free.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Yeah that was kind of my point. That's why it's better if
| there are more younger people to contribute than elderly
| people. If there's less, then the burder is greater on
| individuals.
| irrational wrote:
| What percentage of the 50 million will be old people?
| WillyWonkaJr wrote:
| 40.4%
| tdb7893 wrote:
| The population more than halving in the next century causes
| issues for normal people with expenses of supporting aging
| population and maintaining infrastructure with an ever
| dwindling percent of the population working age. There are some
| benefits to lower populations but also significant practical
| drawbacks to working class people.
| nine_k wrote:
| The problem is not the absolute number of people, but the ratio
| of relatively younger people who work and produce something,
| and the elderly who already are too frail and can only consume
| (pensions, medical care, etc).
|
| Japan has now fewer productive workers per elderly person than
| most developed countries.
| pesus wrote:
| Even if the birth rate suddenly tripled, it wouldn't solve
| that issue for at least a generation. There's going to have
| to be other solutions, maybe in the form of
| automation/robotics/etc in conjunction with societal/economic
| changes. I wouldn't be surprised if the older population
| resists necessary changes and exacerbates the problem,
| though.
| standardUser wrote:
| A change to immigration policy could solve the issue within
| years, but Japan seems like the least likely nation to
| embrace that approach.
| kortilla wrote:
| Solving in a generation is fine if it starts now. GP is
| talking about a projection 100 years out.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| ==Japan has now fewer productive workers per elderly person
| than most developed countries.==
|
| Maybe, over the long run, we could change the expectation
| that elderly people can't be productive. Perhaps eliminating
| 20% of the workweek will allow people to maintain careers
| that are longer? The need to race towards retirement may
| lessen if we ease the burden of our weekly work schedule.
| TomK32 wrote:
| I don't see many of my 40-ish age who live healthy enough
| by exercising, going to work by bike or walking instead of
| car, so they can still be active, let alone productive when
| they enter retirement age.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow your comment. It's possible that AI
| will change the idea of who can be productive, just as
| the internet has changed the idea of who can be
| productive (people with limited mobility, for example).
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| A lot of elderly Japanese already keep working well into
| old age. Some do it for health reasons (physical and
| mental), financial reasons, or out of something like civic
| pride/need to contribute to society. The problem is the
| sector of jobs that elderly people can't do.
| orangecat wrote:
| It's just biology. People in their 70s and older are very
| likely to have physical and/or cognitive issues that
| substantially reduce their potential productivity. This is
| one of many reasons we should prioritize preventing and
| repairing the effects of aging, but until that happens it's
| going to be a problem.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| When populations age and shrink, everything becomes more
| difficult.
|
| Fewer working hands have to support more elderly retirees.
|
| Less spending means less development, less maintenance, things
| break down and nobody can afford to fix them. Entire towns and
| villages slowly wither into nothing. It's a long, slow,
| grinding, painful process with no other way around it.
|
| And it's easy to say "maybe that village should disappear" when
| it's not _your_ village.
| barbazoo wrote:
| It's not sustainable. Immigration would help but from what
| I've heard, it seems that Japan isn't very immigration
| positive overall.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| The problem isn't that companies are "afraid of not growing",
| or governments are "afraid to cut spending", it's that they've
| already signed off on paying back loans over the span of
| decades and were expecting to be able to pay off those loans
| with the value created by a growing population.
|
| It's less about fear and more about economic realities.
| bee_rider wrote:
| What currency are the loans denominated in?
|
| If they are looking at a large aged population (lots of
| retirement savings) and lots of debt, inflation seems like an
| obvious solution, right? People not working will take a QoL
| hit due to their savings being worth less. But that is...
| what it is, I guess.
| rurp wrote:
| Western governments hardly operate on a shoestring budget,
| rather they've spent generations spending profligately with
| the assumption that massive sustained economic growth would
| bail them out without having to make any hard tradeoffs. That
| strategy has worked out ok so far but it has always been a
| fragile one and we might be entering an era where it fails to
| work in many places.
|
| The transition to much lower deficit spending certainly won't
| be popular and might go catastrophically poorly. I actually
| think there's a pretty good chance that things will go quite
| poorly, but there's no reason it has to be so.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > there's no reason it has to be so.
|
| Besides basic human nature.
| bee_rider wrote:
| A lot of Japanese videogames seem to be set in a sort of
| pseudo-post-apocalyptic sort of setting (Final Fantasy comes to
| mind), where it isn't like... mad max raider stuff, but it is
| clear that society once was larger and more developed, and now
| things are diminished with some remnants. I'm wonder if their
| population dynamics inspired that.
| bbqfog wrote:
| WWII is a much more likely inspiration.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| It's not great if it's 15 million supporting 35 million
| children, elderly and sick.
| WillyWonkaJr wrote:
| Here's a case where robotics and other innovations can help
| out.
| barbazoo wrote:
| A diaper changing robot would take care of both ends of the
| spectrum, young and old.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Many sociologists attribute the ever-plunging birth rates to
| Japan's unforgiving work culture and rising costs of living.
|
| It still seems like an incredibly odd argument to me given that
| the birth rate is only marginally lower than in the most
| generous, least working European nations. Hungary spent 5%(!) of
| its GDP on direct family support and it did very little (raised
| the birth rate by 0.15 give or take).
|
| I wonder when people will just acknowledge that most of the
| secular decline of 1-2 children is simply down to personal
| choice, family planning, education and financial freedom. (and
| adjust economic policies accordingly)
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| > adjust economic policies accordingly
|
| What do you have in mind? My understanding is that this is not
| something there is much of an economic solution for short of
| canceling benefits (pensions / medical care)
| standardUser wrote:
| Immigration solves the issue entirely. Maybe not perpetually,
| but for the foreseeable future.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Pension reform is unpopular but will need to happen in
| developed economies at some point or otherwise the youth that
| remains will completely crash out. One positive of the
| population pyramid is that the small next generations stand
| to inherit quite a lot softening it to some extent. But it's
| necessary.
|
| Not enough discussed is also how much potential for labour
| saving tech there is. The most 20 common jobs almost haven't
| changed in decades. Retail, transport, clerks, back office,
| admin, even without magic "AI" solutions, if we wanted to we
| could design work around drastically cutting labour already.
| It's actually one benefit of the demographics, a lot of
| automation isn't happening because manual labour is cheap in
| a lot of places, so there's potential for growth even.
| Aeolun wrote:
| The policies that make schooling and childcare free in Japan
| are very nice.
|
| The problem is that it doesn't move the needle. At least in
| Tokyo it's more or less impossible to not have two working
| parents and own a house. Outside of Tokyo, you might own a
| house, but there's no jobs and everyone around you is 60+
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| I feel like it's been a long time fretting over falling birth
| rates and this is the first time I've seen anyone float the idea
| that making life better for people might make them a bit more
| inclined to make more people.
| Spivak wrote:
| And treat parenting as something other than a passion project
| you work on nights and weekends.
| nkzd wrote:
| I am not sure about this one. In the past, quality of life was
| terrible compared to modern life but fertility was not an
| issue.
| bbqfog wrote:
| Was it more terrible? You certainly had more organic social
| connections and family support. Physically tougher than a
| modern white collar job? Sure. Better than commuting and
| working for some shitty boss though!
| Asraelite wrote:
| Try asking that after spending a while living in a tenement
| building with 3 people per room and frequent outbreaks of
| dysentery and smallpox.
| bbqfog wrote:
| People still live like this today.
| cowgoesmoo wrote:
| extremely rare in countries with falling birth rates
| ipaddr wrote:
| We take so much for granted. Living in a world without
| electricity, medicine, food scarcity, lack of safety net.
|
| Family didn't offer as much support as it appears. Average
| kids are working farms rich children are sent away to be
| raised.
|
| The social bonds of the modern world still exist in the
| same places as the past. It starts with the church.. so if
| you crave the social connections you can still go to church
| to find it.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| You almost had a coherent point until the last sentence.
| I'll take my social bonds without the side-order of
| dogma, thanks.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What bonds people in the past is religious dogma. We
| removed it and we wonder why our social bonds are so
| weak.
|
| I'm not suggesting we go back but we have nothing to
| replace it. The one thing a church did was welcome in
| everyone. We don't have places like that anymore.
| FredPret wrote:
| ipaddr has a point.
|
| The average person (non-scientist, non-technical) has
| replaced belief in the supernatural and the church with
| belief in science and the institutions of the state, and
| though there have been major improvements, we haven't
| completely refactored the old yet. Community and meaning
| is major functionality that we have yet to figure out
| anew.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| People didn't have a choice back then. So the two options now
| are: "force people to have kids" or "make life better for
| people so they want kids". I'd like to think we've evolved
| enough as a society to choose the later option.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Quality of life was terrible, but some things were still
| easier. Most importantly, that terrible quality of life was
| cheap enough that your kids could probably support you in
| your old age. Medical care wasn't so advanced, which is
| cheaper, but also means you had a good chance of dying
| younger or of a condition we could cure today. Housing was
| cheaper but also worse back then. Investments weren't
| accessible to the vast majority of people and "retirement" as
| a concept didn't really exist for the lower classes except as
| an idea that you would probably be too old to effectively do
| your job someday. Nowadays, your kids probably can't afford
| to support you into your old age, and you probably don't have
| a pension, which means making more money now so that you
| don't have to work until you die. You have a lot more options
| for a higher quality of life, but they tend to require that
| you prioritize money over a family unless you are either in
| the privileged position of being able to afford both or poor
| enough that it doesn't matter.
| ativzzz wrote:
| I imagine that birth control as well as the giant array of
| entertainment options available to us other than sex
| contributes to modern fertility
|
| Why do poorer people have more kids? Sex is free, birth
| control and netflix is not
| plantwallshoe wrote:
| Kids used to be seen as a way to increase quality of life.
| They were free labor and a retirement plan all rolled into
| one.
|
| They still are seen as a way to increase quality of life but
| in a more vibey sort of way.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| It's not really a problem you can pick around at the edges. You
| have to take some big swings to try to resolve it. Politicians,
| businesses, and the _entire_ voting public, need to take a hard
| look at the real things they can do that will have an actual
| effect. 4-day workweek is a big one.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >entire voting public,
|
| Won't happen explicitly, The masses are short sighted. Might
| happen implicitly through a series of co-incidental events
| but never by design.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Second item: housing needs to be a bad investment. Both for
| individuals and corporate.
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| I had an interesting discussion with my nephew about this post.
| He angers me with the way he talks about stuff, but I consider
| it an exercise in mental fortitude. Allow me to share his
| absolutely crazy and unreasonable thoughts on this:
|
| "Nobody really wants more people except certain religious
| sects, and that is only because it allows them to use sexuality
| to control people. Most modern capitalists would favor
| automation precisely because it takes unreliable people out of
| the capitalistic equation and makes conversion of real property
| to wealth and power easier. The only reason why we're hearing
| about fertility and birth rate in the last few years is because
| certain religious organizations are scared they're going to end
| up losing their tax-free status and leveraging current social
| crises to make sure they stay relevant by any means necessary.
| I'm betting they have armies of incels ensnared in their
| fundamentalist ideologies getting tax-free money to shitpost on
| the various social networks."
|
| I cut him off right there. I think he was drinking, and I
| haven't talked to him since. I'm considering having him
| committed because he acts very strange. He may have a drug
| problem.
|
| Anyway I disagree with his premise because COVID-19 did really
| expose weaknesses in the supply chain and global world order
| and showed that depending completely on foreign entities can
| make you non-resilient in the face of disaster. So we do need
| strong families and all that stuff that's being talked about,
| it's a real actual need. And I do think making life better for
| people is the way to go, but we need to fix whatever decided
| that landlords should be getting most of the non-rich people's
| money first.
| ativzzz wrote:
| He's not totally wrong, just replace "Religious
| organizations" with "Governments" and "tax-free status" with
| "solders and workers"
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Yes, and the basic idea that while a "modern" capitalist
| might want automation from a productivity point of view,
| they still need some consumers at the other end to buy
| their stuff!
| stjo wrote:
| Also old people. They need younger people to support them,
| like grow their food, fix their houses, etc. But given that
| I plan on growing old, as I hope you do too, we should make
| sure the generations after us are capable of taking care of
| us.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Not exactly, because "governments" are expressly
| capitalist. While you're right in that governments and
| capitalists want this type of fodder, OP's nephew is wrong
| in his assessment of modern capitalists.
|
| As an aside, some religions do teach a duty to be fruitful
| and multiply. While I don't think capital G "Government"
| cares who does or doesn't procreate in their country, there
| are large organized political groups that promote this for
| strictly ethno-nationalist reasons.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| How about we go further, and replace "Governments" with
| "human civilization" and "tax-free status" with "continued
| existence"?
| 05 wrote:
| Unbounded population growth is sufficient but not
| necessary for continued existence of a civilization..
| pnut wrote:
| You might should read up on postmodern philosophy before you
| serve up your relative to the system, for deviating from your
| "one true narrative of history".
|
| So arrogant.
|
| Someone should have you committed for your personal opinions,
| which are also wrong, and see how you like it.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Your over-reaction sounds far more reminiscent of mental
| illness or drug abuse than any of his actual opinions, which
| are fairly pedestrian in 2024 (for the record I don't agree
| with them).
|
| No one is going to commit him over that grandpa, seriously.
| orangecat wrote:
| It's actually that life is too good for childless people,
| especially when they're wealthier. Take a DINK couple with high
| paying jobs, say an engineer and an attorney. Without kids they
| can have a nice house or condo, regularly take great vacations,
| and still be saving enough to have the option of retiring in
| their 40s or 50s. But with kids, that mostly goes out the
| window. The societal expectation is that you should spend
| basically all your disposable time and income on your children,
| which means expensive daycare, travel sports (gotta start
| working on the college applications in grade school), and
| private schools (or "good" "public" schools gated by living in
| a super-expensive area). And even if you can avoid all that,
| colleges are very good at figuring out how much money you have
| and declaring that to be the tuition.
|
| As a high-earning childless person myself, I'll freely
| acknowledge that I should have been paying significantly higher
| taxes in order to benefit my counterparts who did have kids.
| Although it would be a challenge to do that redistribution in a
| way that doesn't just get captured by daycare and college.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| It was actually just _last month_ that I saw one of these
| falling birthrate articles actually acknowledge that many
| people just don 't want kids, it was in the NY Times too
|
| I'm glad we are finally getting representation on that
| instead of all these social science studies contorting
| themselves to come to a child-aspiring default that couples
| are somehow failing to reach
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/well/family/grandparent-g.
| ..
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| There's also some number of couples whose ideal is "no
| compromises" -- that is, they hope to both provide the best
| for their kids _and_ keep the nice house, vacations,
| comfortable retirement, etc.
|
| While this isn't strictly impossible, it's well beyond the
| reach of most, and so I suspect that this group mostly ends
| up never having kids.
| dividefuel wrote:
| I agree with this as the main factor (over cost) for the
| falling birth rate. The opportunity cost of having children
| has never been higher: you give up leisure, hobbies, rest,
| social life, and income. Whether or not children is worth
| this cost is a personal thing, but it seems kinda obvious
| that as the cost increases, fewer will pay it.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > The opportunity cost of having children has never been
| higher: you give up leisure, hobbies, rest, social life,
| and income.
|
| Those things are given up because parenting-time is up
| 20-fold from a few generations ago.
|
| From the 1960s back, kids needed parents a few hours a
| week.
|
| But we reduced kids' roaming area from _many sq mi_ to
| _just their own property_. At the same time, we instituted
| 24 /7 adulting. Most of those hours are filled by parents.
|
| Kids have permanently lost daily hours of peer-driven
| growth - the ones where complex social interactions
| occurred naturally. Parents are now left with trying to
| construct artificial environments (leagues, programs) where
| maybe some of that can occur.
|
| Those efforts eat time and resources. And they're a poor
| substitute for the vital environments that kids once had
| for free.
|
| I spent 20x the time parenting that my mom did. For all of
| that, my kids had little-to-none of my growth
| opportunities.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The parents I've seen seem to spend every waking second
| doting on their children for at least a decade, which seems
| strange to me. This hovering "what can I do to satisfy your
| desires" literally just constantly (I've also seen people
| doing this with their dogs). Maybe I'm missing something or
| my sample size is skewed.
|
| The people I've seen doing this are also just exhausted, as
| they've said directly.
|
| It comes down to... the rent is too damn high.
|
| Young people without children willing to spend 1/3 to 1/2 of
| their total income servicing mortgages or rent drives the
| cost of living to ridiculous levels. People can't afford
| child care either by having family live close to high earners
| to help, or to hire child care. So it's unaffordable. There's
| nowhere to live for families in high density places
| (apartment buildings optimize for the highest rent tennants,
| 1,2 BR single people)
|
| Lots of people want children but can't engineer a life for
| themselves to have them without moving somewhere really far
| out and boring or being in the top 5% of earners, or living
| in squalor despite high incomes.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >The parents I've seen seem to spend every waking second
| doting on their children for at least a decade, which seems
| strange to me. This hovering "what can I do to satisfy your
| desires" literally just constantly
|
| While some of it may be overbearing parenting due to
| wanting kids to compete or train for the future, there is
| also the fact that kids cannot be left alone, and there is
| no extended family supervision for them, and you are told
| you cannot let your kids sit in front of a screen all day.
|
| There's no neighborhood chain of kids ranging from high
| school to toddler playing with each other, there is no
| outside time without adult supervision, an adult who is
| legally liable.
|
| And of course, cars. The environment is optimized for cars,
| not kids, so kids either sit inside alone or with 1 sibling
| or they need to be supervised.
|
| Not applicable to every single family, but many.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It really cannot be understated how few homes we have built
| since the Great Recession and the terrible impact that has
| had on COL.
|
| To give an idea of what it takes to solve a housing
| shortfall, Sweden successfully embarked on a million-homes
| program over a decade in the 70s when the population of
| Sweden was 7 million.
|
| NYC recently just celebrated the passage of a zoning reform
| that allows at most 80,000 new homes, and the population is
| 8.2 million.
| orangecat wrote:
| Yes. I 100% believe in the Housing Theory of Everything:
| https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-
| every...
| nemo44x wrote:
| I enjoyed the DINK life for some time but eventually we
| decided to start a family and my only regret in life is we
| didn't start it sooner and have more kids. In the end all the
| fancy restaurants, nights out, fancy vacations with first
| class airfare, etc were nice in some ways but pretty vapid
| and unimportant when looking back. I won't value those years
| very much compared to the years with children in the house.
| The energy kids bring into a home and the meaningfulness of
| their existence is just incomparable in my experience.
|
| But I get it, and the idea of kids was scary at one time, but
| it turns out they're pretty easy all things considered. Lots
| of talk of "sacrifice" between friends back then but as it
| turns out you're trading something of little value for
| something of immense value. But to each their own!
| hanslovsky wrote:
| I have the sentiment. would have loved to have kids
| earlier, but I also was not in the position at an earlier
| age, relationship wise. Growing up in Germany, having kids
| in your 20s was almost frowned upon. what a terrible
| societal development!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Excellent comment. All the evidences suggests to me that
| removing Social Security/Medicare and other wealth transfers
| from young to old are actually the only thing that might
| incentivize sufficient people to have sufficient kids to meet
| replacement TFR AND raise the kids into the type of adults
| you want.
|
| The reasoning behind this is even with the best quality of
| life, many women will have 2 children, but insufficient women
| will have 3 or more children such that it offsets the number
| of women who have 0 or 1 child.
|
| Those with zero children really drag the average down, and if
| it is because partnering with a certain portion of the
| population is simply not worth it, then government efforts on
| improving quality of life via work and benefit policies are
| not going to bump TFR to replacement rate.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I'll gladly volunteer to be the first to say "Fuck those
| societal expectations, that's insane."
|
| You don't owe your children much more than food, love and a
| roof over their head. Sure, you might _want_ to give them the
| world, but don 't listen to anyone telling you that's the
| _expectation_ - that 's a fast track to resentment.
| a1exyz wrote:
| I agree and think that this is a huge growing cultural
| expectation - "you have to live for your children". I don't
| think it used to be the case.
|
| Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids but
| you're also gonna limit the number of parents if that's the
| new normal.
| halgir wrote:
| On the contrary, from a moral standpoint you owe your
| children everything. You forced them into existence without
| their consent.
|
| Though I agree that doesn't have to mean conforming to
| societal expectations of ivy league schools and so forth.
| Food, love and a roof over your head goes a long way.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > from a moral standpoint you owe your children
| everything. You forced them into existence without their
| consent.
|
| This is the first truth of parenting.
|
| It's also one I had to learn. After I did, organizing my
| priorities became far simpler.
|
| Parenting is service.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Disagree philosophically, there was no "them" to consent
| prior to them existing, so no one was forced. I think
| this is gesturing at Benatar's antinatalist argument but
| as you'll recall it rests on a metaphysical asymmetry
| here I have just never found convincing. Appreciate you
| keeping the pushback civil, however.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| It's interesting to compare this perspective with
| religious teachings which tend to say that kids owe
| everything to their parents ("honor") and that parents
| responsibility is to train their kids with good moral
| character (on top of food, love & shelter).
|
| As a parent you want to give them everything but you then
| have to balance that against realities & other
| priorities. That's part of the training of a good moral
| character: learning to manage life's limitations & your
| response to those limitations.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Don't feel bad. It's good for the planet and society to
| reduce the population somewhat. It can't keep growing
| forever. All the major problems we have are a result of it.
| Climate change, housing shortage, resource conflicts etc.
|
| The demographic problems during a decline are only temporary.
|
| If the world had only 1 billion people it would be a lot
| easier. The whole idea that humanity would go extinct is
| ridiculous. And humanity is still growing anyway due to the
| many countries that don't have falling birth rates.
|
| There's always people wanting to have kids. This is just
| society adjusting itself to the current overpopulation.
| lordleft wrote:
| I think this is an overall good move, and very much support it,
| but many countries with better work-life balance and robust
| support for new parents still see declining birth rates....I
| can't help but think that a decline in fertility rates is as much
| about values -- what the point of life itself is, and how much it
| should be bound up in what we call the family -- as it is about
| the material conditions surrounding the act of child-rearing.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree with you that values are more
| impactful, but personally I think it's very difficult/nearly
| impossible to intentionally steer a culture's values. Do you
| think there is anything procedural/structural that could be
| impactful for declining birth rates?
| Nickersf wrote:
| I don't think it will boost the fertility rate in any significant
| way. I think the only way to really make a dent in low fertility
| rates is to incentivize mothers to stay at home and men to work
| full-time at least for the first five years of a child's life. I
| know people disagree with this, but it's worth considering if the
| declining birth rates are a major concern for the State.
| pamelafox wrote:
| I'm curious if you have tried taking care of a young child
| 24/7, it is exhausting work. Some mothers are able to do it,
| but I find it really helps to be able to alternate between
| childcare and work, to give me a break.
|
| I do think that remote work is great for mothers though, as it
| makes pumping/nursing more doable, whether we are working or
| not.
|
| Perhaps the government can provide more subsidies for quality
| childcare.
| helsinki wrote:
| Just get divorced and only spend a few days per week with
| your kid. Honestly, it's pretty good.
| standardUser wrote:
| A better policy would be to incentivize _any_ parent to stay
| home for the first few years. Restricting it to mothers would
| only reduce the appeal of the policy and result in fewer
| takers, so why default to a more restrictive approach?
| wwwlouishinofun wrote:
| The pleasure of sexual activity is not strongly linked to
| pregnancy. This kind of human intervention was unexpected in the
| evolution of nature.
| Aeolun wrote:
| As much as I enjoy the concept, it's already nearly impossible to
| get any goverment work done in Japan without taking a day off
| yourself. Everything government is open 9 to 5 and no more.
|
| It'd be more exciting if this was basically anywhere else, but I
| guess we have to start somewhere.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Hopefully the workers don't all take off the same day and the
| company backfills the hours with new 4 days/week workers.
| jmward01 wrote:
| This focuses on fertility, but the bigger deal here is it creates
| jobs. Because when you reduce the availability of labor you
| create more jobs and spur the economy. Not only will more people
| have jobs, but they will have more time to spend money. So this
| is potentially a win for the local economy.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| If they're just reshuffling the existing work to a larger pool
| of people, do you really improve the economy? If anything I'd
| expect efficiency to decrease?
| orangecat wrote:
| This is a variant of the broken window fallacy. Paying more in
| labor for the same amount of output is not good for the
| economy.
| jmward01 wrote:
| This isn't destroying anything so I'm not sure why you say
| this has anything to do with the broken window fallacy or why
| this could be bad for the economy.
|
| Since there is confusion here, I'll pose this as a different
| thought experiment to make my points more clear: If it isn't
| good for the economy to reduce the average hours per worker
| then does that mean it is good for the economy to increase
| them? If we reduce the free-time of people then they will
| have even less time to spend their money and consume goods.
| Arguably they would also have less incentive to care about
| free-time activities that they can only, at best, sample.
|
| The basic question I am raising is why is 5 days of 8 hours
| magically the right number. I'd argue that the more free time
| people have the more chance to consume they have. We balance
| that with the need to produce though. So an optimum point is
| actually driven by efficiency. The more efficient we are the
| more we should be diverting to free-time in order to drive
| more demand for the the. efficient goods we are producing. In
| a world where we are infinitely efficient then 100% of time
| should be spent in free-time in order to consume the most
| goods produced by that infinite efficiency. We aren't there
| yet so we still need to balance production against free-time
| but we are more efficient than we were 20 years ago so we
| should be finding ways to give back free-time to drive up
| demand.
| eastbound wrote:
| Breaking windows also creates jobs.
|
| (It's a fallacy, but I'm too lazy to face the criticism if I
| explain it in full. In summary, please inform yourself on why
| both breaking windows and working less don't create jobs).
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Is this the largest test/rollout of a 4 day work week ever?
| mclau156 wrote:
| The idea of working 5 days a week began when an extra day of
| working meant you could manufacture an extra 100 cars, workload
| in the Tokyo government is not going to suffer much output at all
| if any by going to working 4 days a week
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| So... five days?
|
| Maybe government work is different from private industry work,
| but the folks at my company worked six days a week, with Saturday
| being a "half day" (only 8 hours). However, Saturday wasn't an
| "official" office day, so casual attire was allowed, and the A/C
| was often turned off.
|
| I hated going in on Saturdays.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Shorter hours for less pay feels like a trap for salaried
| workers, unless your duties are also _very formally_ lessened. I
| know people who have been granted similar schedules, but their
| managers simply expected them to get the same amount of work
| done, but in less time, for less pay.
| agnishom wrote:
| I agree. If I made 20% less money and worked 20% less at my
| main job, I would still need to make up for that 20% of my
| income. That could be a difficult position to be in.
| agnishom wrote:
| Surprisingly progressive policy.
|
| I know this is mostly tangential, but I think that this should be
| the way humanity should benefit from technology. Better
| technology shouldn't just exist to make capitalists richer, but
| it should exist to make everyone richer. One of the most
| important ways you can be richer is to have more time.
| icandoit wrote:
| for parents only?
| camgunz wrote:
| Guys if this is happening in Tokyo of all places, no one else has
| any excuse.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Elon Musk is pissed
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Ai should run government
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