For many Japanese men, becoming a full-time white-collar worker – or a ‘salaryman’ – is the key to financial stability and respectability. But once they’re hired, some find their jobs are close to a living nightmare. Poor working conditions, combined with societal pressures to hide weakness and mental-health issues, have led to a rash of suicides among Japan’s salarymen. Overworked to Suicide is a harrowing examination of what can happen when worker treatment goes unchecked and mental-health problems go untreated.
How overwork and taboos around mental illness ravage Japanese salarymen
Director: Shiho Fukada
13 July 2015
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