The same problems come up again and again in discussions of what Japan needs to do to revive its economy. The first is low white-collar productivity. The second is population aging. The third is gender equality. Now the government is poised to attack all three problems at once, undertaking an assault on one of the central features of the country's corporate culture — long working hours.

Japan is legendary for its work ethic. You wouldn't know this from the official statistics, which show Japanese working hours converging with U.S. levels:

I suspect the Japanese numbers are understated. Many more salaried workers in the United States are exempt from overtime rules than in Japan. Therefore, Japanese bosses have a bigger incentive than their U.S. counterparts to force their white-collar employees to work off the clock. In any case, surveys find that unpaid overtime is significant. Additionally, much of Japan's working hour decline comes from a compositional shift from full-time to part-time work — in other words, underemployment. Full-time workers in Japan still work longer than their U.S. counterparts.