KAROUSHI - STRESS-DEATH AND THE MEANING OF WORK

The present article is concerned with some of the human factors involv ed when overtime and overwork become part of the regular and accepted pattern of work, with sometimes tragic results. While the ''economic m iracle'' of Japan can be much admired, it has not been without human c ost. Only recently, national and global attention is being focused on a new and deadly phenomenon in Japan: Karoushi, which the Japanese def ine as ''death from over-work,'' and which I choose to re-define as '' stress-death'' related to feelings of helplessness. It is my tentative hypothesis that karoushi is not directly caused by overwork, as popul arly assumed. Rather, I believe that overwork is only one factor, and that stress-death is actually caused by the cumulative, long-range eff ects of working in a situation where one feels trapped and powerless t o effect any change for the better, which in turn leads to attitudes o f hopelessness - attitudes which are exacerbated, rather than ameliora ted, by environmental and managerial factors.