Japan: Why do Japanese work so hard?

Japanese blogger id:eliya, who is doing economics research abroad, writes that he is often asked by colleagues why Japanese work so hard ^[1] [ja]. Referring to economics professor Masami Nomura's book, “Employment Instability ^[2]” (雇用不安) [ja], he explains that Japanese work hard basically because the penalty for being fired from your job is very high: Japanese corporations, for example, are unlikely to hire a worker who has already been fired from another job mid-career.