Better Life Lab Podcast: Work Till You Die

Listen to the Better Life Lab podcast on Slate, hosted by Brigid Schulte and produced by David Schulman.

In Japan, workers are so used to working punishingly long hours that dying from overwork is a common phenomenon—so common, in fact, that victims’ families can and do routinely apply for worker compensation benefits. We tell the stories of Japanese workers caught up in a system of overwork, young activists trying to change that system, and a professor trying to make sense of it all. Is it an exclusively Japanese phenomenon? What can Americans learn from a culture of overwork?