Reverse Hikikomori — The Japanese Who Don’t Want to Go Home

Why Japanese Do Not Work as Much as You Think

It is widely believed that Japanese work long hours due to various social expectations and pressures. However, while this may have been the case in the past, it is no longer the case for a growing majority of Japanese workers.

More and more Japanese businesses are limiting overtime work; joining with government initiatives to change Japan’s overwork culture. Some companies are even going as far as turning off the lights and locking the door to make people go home.

But this has not caused Japanese to head home.

Instead, employees are heading to street stalls, manga cafes, and even starbucks; all in an effort to avoid going home.

This has led to new vocabulary to talk about this phenomena. The phrase “fear of going home” (kitakukyōfushō 帰宅恐怖症) as a phrase and a phenomenon that has been around since the mid-1990s. More recently, words like “overtime refugees” (zangyō nanmin 残業難民) and “Furarīman” (フラリーマン), meaning for someone to futtler around at shops, have been added.

So why is this happening? Is this just another case of old habits dying hard? No.

Reasons for Not Going Home

The reasons why many Japanese employees are refusing to go home are complex and varied. In the end, it boils down to not having a home they want to return to.

A Dark and Cold Home

Some workers have a “home” to go back to but have no one there to greet them. A study in 2015 found that of working age adults (18 to 40 years old) 40.7% of women and 50.8% of men were single. This leaves many feelng that it is better to go somewhere fun or where there are others rather than going home. Why rush home to a tiny dark apartment, right?

Family Life is Difficult

For those who are married, home is often not where the heart is.

Japanese housewives (sengyō shufu 専業主婦) often treat their husbands as another child to take care of. Being at home causes many husbands to feel belittled or in the way. Add to that the fact that 2 out of 3 marriages in Japan are sexless, leaves men little to feel happy about going home to.

Work is then a more appealing place to be than being at home. At least at work they have a purpose and a way to be useful.

Even those with what we call a more “modern” home life often refuse to go home. Ikumen (イクメン), a word coined around the early 2000’s, is a play on childcare (ikuji 育児) and symbolizes the new role that men should play in helping raise their children. Yet this has added just another reason for not going home.

Men in this situation often claim that they don’t want to or simply can’t live up to this new standard for husbands. I had one Japanese salaryman tell me that his boss repremanded him for a drop in the quality of his work, leading him to refuse to help out at home. Learning just how hard housework is has not boosted men’s desire to go home after a hard day at the office.

Women Too

Of course it is not just men who are refusing to go home due to the difficulties of family life.

For women, going home has always meant taking on the lion’s share of the housework and childcare. Now working full time themselves, women in surveys often give the same answers as men do as to why they don’t want to go home.

I have even heard wives say that even if their husbands do help out around the house, they do not trust them to do a good job and have to go around double checking everything; which is more annoying that just doing it themselves.

Again, why work all day and then go home only to do more work?

Interestingly, women are increasingly visiting host clubs (with male hosts) which was a previously male dominated pastime. The hosts make them feel appreciated and loved, not to mention helping fight off loneliness; things that they often struggle to get at both home and work.

The above are just a few of the reasons why Japanese are avoiding going home.

What is fascinating to me, and I hope you, is that none of them are about work. Companies reducing overtime work has, rather than helping improve peoples lives, brought to light a harsh reality of Japanese life.

Furthermore, it might also provide insights into why Japan developed such an overtime work culture in the first place.

So how about you? Do you avoid going home for reasons other than work? If so, are your reasons the same? Or do you have a different reason?

If you want to read more about this topic check out these related posts:

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