Suicide from
Overwork in the Neoliberal Age: A Comparative Case
Study

Korean
Institute of Labor Safety and Health

2018

1.
Background and purpose of research 

Suicide from overwork or karojisatsu has increased,
especially in certain types of businesses. If Karojisatsu serves as a mirror
which emblematically reflects how workers are treated in this time, as someone
said, we can say that workers are entirely exposed to emergency and hopeless
conditions which makes humane life impossible. Studying suicide from overwork
aims to identify risk factors, to reveal the common features of them, and to
look for alternatives.

However, even though Karojisatsu happens
daily and gains more media coverage, it is difficult to find empirical
research. Korea media simply quote the Japanese expression, ‘karojisatsu,’ and deal
with the Karoshi Prevention Act in a way that does not consider the social
context of Korea. Simple import of the Karoshi Prevention Act is not enough to
identify and tackle the contextual and structural risk factors of karojisatsu in
current Korea society.

The definition of karojisatsu does not
exist, which is problematic and results in a lack of empirical research. Korea
has chronic overwork and a high rate of suicide, but there are no statistics on
karojisatsu, because the concept is not officially defined. All that exists are
either conservative data from the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare
Service or roughly estimated numbers.

This study investigated the context and
structural factors surrounding workers’ suicides including the work process and
context of the workplace. The results indicate how neoliberal economic systems affect
workplaces and workers to create brutal overwork that triggers suicides.

In fact, suicide from overwork itself may not be a new phenomenon. However, karojisatsu
is a new phenomenon that has emerged in the context of introducing and
developing neoliberal performance measures such as strengthening
competitiveness, strengthening customer satisfaction and productivity
improvement since the mid-1990s. Karojisatsu should be analyzed as a new
phenomenon even in comparison with China and Japan.

Overwork and suicide are not separate
phenomena, but illustrate the inevitable tragic consequence of overwork as
reflected by suicide rates that have increased rapidly since the mid-1990s. This
study focuses on karojisatsu as a unique ‘social fact’, a socio-structural
feature in which overwork and suicide are tangled. This research examines
prevalent risk factors for the new phenomenon of karojisatsu and new risk
factors caused by neoliberal capitalist production systems. Socio-structural
characteristics of karojisatsu are described to enable development of better
alternatives to deal with the problem.

Based on the repeated occurrence of karojisatsu
and its trends, it is easy to find that karojisatsu is related to structural
problems in organizations and environments. However there are rampant speeches
to make Karojisatsu personalized or decentralized. Neoliberal theory converting
the risk of overwork into personal responsibility treats karojisatsu as a
personal susceptibility. This is how the structural risk of karojisatsu is
depoliticized. This research aims to criticize the point of view that implies that
karojisatsu is solely an issue of personal responsibility and to clarify that
karojisatsu is the result of production-related exploitation.

This study also explores the question of
whether karojisatsu is a unique phenomenon in East Asia. For this aim, we compared
China, Japan, and South Korea to explore East Asian characteristics of karojisatsu
and identify special features of South Korea  This can show what cultural explanations such
as ‘Korean’ ‘Japanese’, ‘Chinese’, and ‘East Asian’ means. Also it can help us
overcome the limit of those cultural explanations.

The subjects of this research are cases that have happened at workplaces with
repeated occurrences of karojisatsu. For example, there are suicide cases of
postal workers, programmers, web designers, and other workers who produce
computer games, on-the-job trainees, social workers, immigrant workers, and young
applicants. These subjects were chosen by each researcher’s interest so that they
do not represent all cases of karojisatsu. But these are repeated karojisatsu
cases and therefore can show contextual and structural factors of karojisatsu.

In the
first half of this research, the features of each case were investigated (background,
cause, issue, measures, etc.) and common factors of structural risk were
identified along with proposals for priority of alternatives. In the latter
half of this research, the similarities and differences among cases were
classified. This included how to  reorganize
the concept of karojisatsu, what points of social conflict or media and public
attention exist, and how to arrange alternatives.

2.
Table of contents

Part 1. Prologue 
1. The repeated occurrence of karojisatsu

Part 2. Cases of Karojisatsu
2. Workers in the computer game business crushed to death by crunch mode
3. Young workers end their lives in their first job
4. Workers who cross the border: immigration, work, and death
5. How are social workers exploited by faith and dedication?
6. Young applicants’ isolation during exam preparation and anti-politics
7. How long are real working hours? Postal worker’s case

Part 3. Experience of China and Japan
8. Suicide by drowning in Foxconn and Huawei
9. Karojisatsu in Japan and trends in regulation

10. After karojisatsu, a story of bereaved
families

Part 4. Epilogue
11. Beyond simple social recognition and exclusion of karojisatsu: Rethinking
the concept of overwork
12. Systems to mass produce death
13. Appendix: case study of approval and disapproval in mental disease