Survey Study on Workers' Affluent And Leisurely Lifestyleand Their Ways of Spending Time


1. Objectives and Method of Survey
  In today's Japan, it is widely recognized that a reduction of working hours is essential to realize an affluent and leisurely lifestyle for workers. Various efforts have been made by labor and management toward the realization of a working population with 1,800 annual labor hours. In reality, however, while the total working hours per year has been steadily reduced down to 1,900 hours as of the year 1997, the ratio of annual paid holidays actually taken is unable to rise over the 60% mark, and constant overtime hours are also an issue.
   On the other hand, Japan is undergoing a rapid aging trend and a birthrate decline both at unusually faster paces than in any other country. Accordingly, the working population has peaked out already and it seems to be certain that even if workers over the age 65 are counted the actual number of active laborers will start to decrease in the near future. Given this situation, the creation of an environment where workers can support society throughout their lifetime while still feeling a true sense of affluence and leisure is strongly required.
   In search for answers to this issue, this study tries to obtain insights as to ideal styles of working life by questioning those in their 60's who have experienced retirement about how they actually spend their time. At the same time, a questionnaire survey was conducted with labor unions in an attempt to understand the realities of independent approaches toward shorter working hours and obstacles impeding such efforts for those generations not yet of retirement age.

2. Survey Findings Overview
【Survey on Actual Conditions of Time Usage of People in their 60s】
Time Period: January to March, 1998
Sample: 1,350 persons
Effective Total Responess: 727 (Effective Response Rate: 53.9%)

1) Working Persons in their 60s
   "It is good to work for my health and fitness" (54.8%), is the dominant reason to continue or resume working after retirement. Economic factors are not mentioned much in the responses. But it should be noted that the rates of employment are evidently different among those with mortgage loans and those without them, and that the reason "somebody asked them to work" (35.2%), ranked 2nd. In such cases, whether they are asked to work by their former employers, or by family members is unknown. On the other hand, the answer that "it is necessary to help out with the family budget," is not minor (35.2%). The average total household income of all the respondents is 4.81 million yen, and the working male group averages 5.22 million yen. Pension income accounts for a large portion of the household income, as shown by the answer "to be dependent mostly on pension," selected by a half of the total respondents and 46.4% of working males.
   The average service years after retirement show two different patterns: one is for those who select to continue with their previous work after retirement at the age 60 or earlier, and the other is those who find a new job. In the latter case, many people tend to keep working for a long time.
   Job types and working styles are quite diversified and do not allow for generalization. The working days, however, stay around 15 days per month for all. Most of the part-time workers with shorter working hours work only in the morning and their wages are not seniority-based, but hourly-based.
   Time spent in commuting tends to decrease gradually as respondents get older, averaging less than 30 minutes among those over 65 years old. As means of commuting, the private car is predominant (44.2%), seemingly giving something of an insight into the working conditions of the elderly.
   Patterns of how they spend holidays are vary according to job types. Managerial staff, specialized engineers, clerical staff, and sales staff reserve significant amounts of time for job-related activities such as the entertainment of their clients. On the other hand, these people spend shorter amounts of time on social activities than others, possibly indicating that they continue to be organization persons.

2) "Every Day is not Sunday" for Non-Workers
   Among non-workers, "I worked enough and am tired" (37.3%), ranked 3rd as a reason for not working. However, when this answer is examined in light of the top-ranked response "I want to pursue my hobbies," and the 2nd ranked answer "I want to contribute to society outside my job," and their vigorous participation in social activities, it seems reasonable to regard most of the responses as manifestations of a strong intention to depart positively from working life and enjoy one's own private life. To the question inquiring into conditions to start working again, 35.7% of male and 50.0% of female respondents give an answer "I do not intend to work again" (39.9% in total).
   Male and female non-working respondents actually use on average 4 hours and 3.5 hours respectively a day for social activities such as volunteer work. The time period for such activities corresponds almost precisely with the working hours of respondents with jobs, in both male and female respondents. The working respondents spend a significant amount of time (1.5 to 2.5 hours) on social activities on holidays, and not a few people who work only until noon engage eagerly in social activities in the afternoon. A lifestyle focusing on their relationship with society in general is widely observed regardless of working status.
   The daily timetable of non-working males does not change much from day to day in a week. It looks like every day is Sunday in this respect, but they spend more time with their families or have more leisure time alone on weekends than weekdays. This indicates that people spend time differently anyway on weekdays and weekends regardless of differences in generation or working status.
   Respondents spend a lot of time going around with their family or relatives on weekends, especially on Sunday afternoon, regardless of gender nor whether they are working or not. This is because of a pattern of spending time with their children who are not yet of retirement age.
   Many non-workers take care of their children or grandchildren between 3 and 5 p.m. on weekdays. It seems that they are supporting their children's two-income households by looking after their grandchildren. The picture is completely different for working respondents with such baby-sitting time for children or grandchildren concentrated on Sunday morning.

3) Gender Consideration in the Case of the Senior and Retired People
   Women spend more time on domestic duties than men, and this means less leisure time for them. A non-working female spends 3 to 4 times more on housekeeping than a non-working male. Such distribution of labor by gender is maintained even after retirement age.
   The time spent on nursing and caring for family members was also inquired into, and it was found that a significant number of females were occupied with housework or nursing and caring fully from waking up until 2 or 3 hours before going to bed, although the actual number of respondents who fell into this category was small. Accordingly, these females have less time to spare for leisure and association. However, this does not necessarily discourage them from taking part in social activities.
   Living alone does not always mean loneliness. Women, especially, vigorously engage in learning and study activities and seem more active than men, who spend relatively longer times on "newspapers, magazines, books, TV, and radio" or at "resting or relaxing without a particular purpose".

4) Questions to the Next Generation
   The findings of this survey on the time usage of people in their 60s reveal that participation in social activities is the key point. It seems that diversified and flexible working styles coupled with the presence of a variety of easy to join into social activities contribute a lot to leisure and affluence.
   This survey is not free of bias due to the sampling method, and evidently does not provide a well-balanced reflection of all people in their 60s. But the members of the study committee share a strong impression that those senior people leading quite active lives are asking questions to their juniors who are not yet retirement age such as "can you participate in social activities?" and "can you be an elder capable of supporting society?" It is certain that approaches to enable a so-called soft landing to the drastic post-retirement changes in the living environment will be required.

【Survey on Actual Conditions of Challenges to Realize 1,800 Working Hours】
Time Period: January to February, 1998
Sample: 600 labor unions under 12 industry-specific organizations affiliated to Rengo (The Japan Trade Union Confederation)
Effective Total Responses:423 (Effective Response Ratio:70.5%)

1) Current Status of Working Hours for Working Generation Not Yet Retirement Age
   Those who look at the reality of working hours of the generation actively employed would notice first the dragging pace of reductions in working hours.
   The ratio of overtime compensation in monthly income averages 13.7% of the total, showing that workers' livings are heavily dependent on overtime payments. The ratio varies depending on the number of employees. While more overtime work to help out with living expenses is found in smaller-sized companies, more overtime to keep up with an increased workload is seen in larger corporations.
  The rate of annual paid holidays taken averages 58.5%, but actual rates are widely dispersed from 2.0% to 99.0%. As to the question of whether the situation has gotten better or worse compared with 5 years ago, 33.3% of the respondents answered "gotten better," and 19.4% give "gotten worse," showing a bipolarizing tendency.
   Primary factors impeding taking annual paid leaves are external, such as human resources shortages (75.9%), increasing workload (59.8%), and insufficient consideration on the part of superiors (36.9%). But secondary, personal factors like hesitance felt due to colleagues (48.0%), and demotivation to take such holidays (32.2%) cannot be neglected.

2) Approaches towards Shorter Working Hours by Labor Unions
   Labor unions take a variety of approaches towards shorter working hours, including efforts to change the awareness of union members, encouragement of consumption of consecutive paid holidays, reevaluation of work and work processes, reconsideration of staffing, and the securing of alternates. It is particularly noteworthy that individual guidance to encourage the taking of paid leave is widely implemented for both management staff and unionists (20.1% and 26.2% of total responses respectively).
   Approaches to encourage the taking of consecutive paid holidays show differences depending on the number of employees. Large corporations seem to take especially positive approaches.
   Behind such efforts by labor unions to have individual guidance for managerial staff to encourage the taking of paid leave, lays the labor unions' recognition that the halfhearted attitude towards shorter working hours on the part of managers is an obstacle to realizing a reduction in total working hours. In fact, to the question rating awareness of the importance of shorter working hours among the managerial class, responses including both "negative" and "rather negative" account for 42.8% of the total.
   To a question rating awareness among unionists, positive answers exceed negative ones on taking paid holidays and using special holidays, while more negative responses (32.9%) are given than positive ones (22.2%) on the reduction of overtime.
   Evident correspondence between the consumption ratio of paid holidays and overtime working hours cannot be found in this survey. However, a tendency that those unions with higher paid leave consumption ratios take more active approaches towards the reduction of overtime is observed, and more effects of such endeavors are expected in the future.

3) Realities Come in Sight
The following can be concluded related to the findings of this survey.
・Reduction of working hours realizes more leisure and affluence for the generations actively working and not yet at retirement age of today.This has been repeatedly pointed out.
・Reduction of working hours realizes more leisure and affluence for the senior generation of today.The effects on generations still actively working being able, because of shorter working hours, to spend more of their free time in supporting activities currently shouldered by elderly people, are not insignificant.
・Reduction of working hours realizes more leisure and affluence for the future of generations not yet at retirement age today.The effect is not insignificant in reducing the magnitude of change to be experienced before and after retirement by those generations still actively working today.
    In other words, reduction of working hours is required to be understood and pursued as a key factor in realizing an environment conducive to a happy post-retirement career, rather than an issue that solely concerns the current status of generations which have not yet reached retirement age.