But then came a revelation. This past summer, Yamaguchi took his family to a traditional festival at his children’s school. There was nothing unusual about the experience–until the businessman approached a few food stalls manned exclusively by dads, who were doing all the cooking and catering to the kids. Yamaguchi says it was an “amazing” scene: Here were salarymen like himself performing quasi-domestic duties–in public–and entertaining kids. And they all seemed to be happy. “The festival scene hit me [hard],” he says now, “and changed my perspective on life entirely.”
The stalls were run by a local Father’s Club in Yamaguchi’s neighborhood–a group of dads who had made a commitment to spend more time with their children and serve their local community. Such clubs are a fast-growing phenomenon in Japan. There are no official figures but some estimate that there are more than 300 in Tokyo alone, and more than 2,000 in Japan with about 10,000 members. One of the newest is Yamaguchi, who is now eager to do fun things with his kids and those of other members–rafting, hiking or attending festivals. “More fathers are becoming aware of their responsibilities to their families and their communities,” says Yoko Koyama, director general of the All Japan Father’s Club, the umbrella organization. “They feel now they must get involved to help raise their children.”
Throughout Japan, increasing numbers of middle-aged businessmen are trying to expand their lives beyond their workplace. Many are focusing on their families and others are seeking ways to do good things for other people–in their communities, in Japan and even in other countries. The number of nonprofit charitable and aid organizations in Japan has skyrocketed over the last several years–partly because of a change in the law that’s helped nonprofits operate more like companies, and partly because the Japanese public, including salarymen, is focusing on issues not fully addressed by the government: education, the environment and social welfare.
Others are helping out the government itself. Kazuhisa Norimatsu, a 40-year-old TV commercial producer, quit his job with an ad production company to work on projects for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a state-run aid agency that provides technical expertise to developing countries. He’s made two trips to Africa thus far.
The years of recession helped diminish Japan’s slavish devotion to work. “There has been a shift in the mind-set of businessmen,” says Akihiko Nishiyama, author of several books on salarymen. “They’re less company oriented these days and more concerned with [their own lives].” He estimates that among businessmen in their 40s, 20 percent are still married to work, while another 20 percent are leading “a more balanced” life. And the other 60 percent? Nishiyama says they’re stuck in the middle–mindful of the need to adapt to social priorities but struggling to alter their habits.
Changes in the culture of Japan Inc. are another reason for this shift. The country’s vaunted lifetime employment system is slowly being phased out, and so, too, is Japan’s seniority-based promotion system. Businessmen nowadays are vulnerable to layoffs, and corporate advancement is increasingly based on merit. Those new realities have made business workers less secure, and hence loosened the tethers that traditionally bound them to their companies.
And some worrying social trends may also be forcing a rethinking among dads. A recent study by the Japan Youth Research Institute, a think tank, showed that Japanese high-school students are far less motivated than their peers in Northeast Asia. According to the survey, only 30 percent of teenage students believe that going to a good university is important, compared with 80 percent among young people in South Korea and China. The study also revealed that young Japanese are not so close to their families, and that few Japanese students aspire to be leaders (16 percent identified that as a goal versus roughly 50 percent for high-school students in the United States, China and South Korea).
Combined with falling academic performance results in recent years, the youth survey has set off alarm bells in Japan. Experts increasingly point to absent fathers as one important reason for the slack emotional state of young people. Dads themselves have reached the same conclusion. “I’m so busy on weekdays with my job, but that makes it the more imperative that I spend time with my daughters on weekends,” says Tetsuhito Matsuyama, 44, who runs a bioventure company in Tokyo and has been a Father’s Club member for three years.
Norimatsu, the former maker of TV commercials, was increasingly frustrated with a job he didn’t love. He always wanted to direct films, and faced with a JICA offer to teach filmmaking in Cairo for two years, he jumped at it. He was paid for the work and enjoyed it–so much so that earlier this year he went off to Uganda on another JICA posting. He’s not making as much money as he once did, “but I can manage to support myself without being a company man,” says Norimatsu. “And I really like working in Africa. I now experience a strong sense of achievement that I never felt before with my regular job. I can feel the difference.”
The Father’s Clubs aren’t entirely about socializing. At meetings, usually twice a month, the dads discuss earthquake preparedness and ways to protect their children from becoming victims of crime, which has been rising steadily over the past decade. To be sure, there are occasional drinking sessions after some meetings (when the kids aren’t around), but unlike the rest of Japanese society, no business cards are exchanged. All that matters is action–and the skill, perhaps, to grill a hog at festival time.
Yamaguchi himself is a new man. He still works on weekends, but only occasionally. Because he’s learned to manage his time more efficiently, he now gets home from work at 6:30 p.m. at least twice a week. He spends the free time talking to his wife and children. “It’s a nice surprise to find out various things that are happening to our children,” he says, adding that the kids seem happy to have him around. “I realize how precious it is for us to spend time together now.” Salarymen like him still take their work seriously. But learning to loosen up and broaden their perspective could well do more to tighten the country’s social fabric over time.
