Policy Proposal: Japan’s social welfare

Re: Improvement of Japan’s Overworking Issue

To: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan

From: Toshinori Ohashi

Date: December 12th, 2015

I. Executive Summary

This policy paper deals with the overworking issue in Japan. First, it shows evidence and the root causes of the issue from a cultural perspective: the lack of workers’ time to spend outside of work and the lack of women’s participation in full-time jobs. Secondarily, it lists three alternatives: Investment on Childcare Facilities by cutting tax credit, Regulating on Work Environment and Obligating Counseling. Then, based on three criteria, Cost, Commitment, and Efficiency, it compares each alternative. It goes further to argue each outcome and trade-off. At the end of the paper, it reaches a conclusion to recommend Alternative 1, analyzing from various perspectives.

II. Identifying the Issue: evidence and the root cause of the issue

i. Evidences

The overworking issue in Japan has not only made people suffer from illness such as heart attacks but also led a lot of people to commit suicide.

First of all, Japanese work longer than other developed countries. More than 22% worked more than 49 hours per week (McCurry, 2015). If the workers worked 5 days per week, it is the equivalent of 9.8 hours per day. In contrast, it is only 16% in the United States and 11% in France and Germany (2015). The number of people who answered that worked more than 60 hours per week is 8.8%, 4.74 million people (Chung and APP, 2015). Japanese workers’ average sleep hours are 6 hours and 22 minutes per night, which is the lowest level in the world (Smith, 2015). It is only 54% of the respondents answered that they maintain good night sleep every or almost every night (2015). If you think Japan’s work environment, combining the work hours and sleep hours, it shows that there are people who work more than 49 hours per week but cannot even maintain enough sleep to refresh themselves. It is only 8% that has managed more than 8 hours per night (McCurry, 2014).

Secondarily, a lot of people have been awarded compensation. It is more than 300 people who were awarded compensation from a work-related accident after suffering heart attacks or strokes (The Japan Times, 2014). However, there are people who have suffered from mental illness and decided to kill themselves. The work-related suicide rate has been gradually increasing. It was 2,323 people who committed suicide because of work problems in 2013 (MHLW). There were some people who had to give up challenging compensations. Some experts argue that those who killed themselves might not have been able to find enough evidence to claim compensation (2014). Therefore, those who actually could have been awarded compensation due to death from overworking are limited to 133 in 2013 (MHLW).

Figure 1: Suicide rate over the past 30 years (MHLW)

Thirdly, more white color workers suffer from the overworking problem than blue color workers. This is due to the shift of industry to service work. Before the world war, blue color workers worked longer than white color workers. In 1941, according to the survey done by NHK, blue color worked 10 hours per day whereas white color worked 7 hours and a half per day (Morioka, 2010). Morioka points out that the tide has changed over the past decades and white color workers now work more than a few hours than blue color workers. According to the statistics from “karoshi 110 net (karoshi 110ban zenkoku net)”, which is a counseling service established by lawyers in 1988, they have received more calls from white color workers. During 1988 to 1999, 67% of those people, who have consulted with 110net, were white color workers (Fujioka, 2002). The newest statistics from 1988 to 2012 shows that the number has increased to 72.9% (Karoshi 110 net).

This policy note focuses more on the white color workers. The reason is that the increasing number of white color jobs and its nature of difficulty to manage their work time compared to blue color jobs. On top of that, White Color Exemption System has been debated in the congress since the beginning of this year. If the government approves the system, white color workers would not be able to receive overwork payment. The policy might not lead to the end of overworking but would further degrade white color workers’ work-life balance. From these reasons, this paper focuses on the improvement of white color jobs’ environment.

i. The root causes of the issue

There are two causes of this overworking problem in Japan: Lack of workers’ time to spend outside of work and lack of women’s participation in full-time jobs.

1. Lack of Workers’ time to spend outside of work

Japanese workers have less time to spend outside of work compared to the other developed countries. People work more than 1,700 hours per year, which is the highest level in OECD countries (Kenjo, 2011). Also, in terms of paid vacation, workers take only 9 of their 18.5 days paid vacation in average (McCurry, 2015). The reasons are mostly due to cultural aspects. “Clearing away their desks and being at home in time for dinner is enough to invite accusations of disloyalty” (2015). Also, taking paid vacations involves fear of being ostracized by colleagues (Smith, 2015). It is imaginable why there are people who succumb to kill themselves from stress. Cultural aspects have been worsening the work-life balance of Japanese workers. Therefore, this cultural barrier has to be taken into consideration that whether each alternative can be adaptable.

However, it is important to point out the inefficiency of Japanese workers compared to its long working hours. GDP per person is 70 dollars per person, which is the lowest in comparison among Germany, the Untied States, France, Sweden and the Netherlands (2011). This means that Japanese workers are not necessarily creating more economic value by working longer than other countries, but it is because of the cultural aspects that they have to work long. Hence, this point should be considered when to decide which alternative to be the most effective.

2. Lack of Women’s Participation in full-time jobs

If there were more female full-time workers, the overall work capacity is much higher, which means individual’s workload could have been smaller. Therefore lack of women’s participation in full-time jobs is one of the reasons why overworking issue is happening in Japan.

Because of the severe work environment, it is more difficult for women to continue working full time. Female participation in the labor force is 63% in Japan (Smith, 2015). After a first child, 70% of women stop working whereas only 30% in the United States (2015). This explains why Japanese women’s employment graph always shows the M-shaped curve. After giving birth, a lot of women decide to work part-time or temporary. Women make up 77% of Japan’s part-time and temporary jobs (2015). Here is also a cultural aspect. The gender gap still remains high in Japan. It ranks 105th out of 136 countries according to World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap 2013. The main barrier to women pursuing their career is the lack of pro-family public support such as sufficient childcare facilities (Kinoshita and Guo, 2015). Women in Japan still have double burden if they decide to pursue a career and have children. It is much harder for women to balance work and life combined with the long working culture.

It is important to note that social tide has been gradually changing. Abe government revealed its policy called, “womenomics (Women + Economics)”. It aims to encourage women to participate in the labor force. For example, it includes a goal to achieve the higher ratio of women at managerial positions. Society’s attitude toward women who pursue their career has been influenced with the globalization. Therefore, the cultural barrier against women, which weakens pro-women policies, might still remains, but the society is becoming more and more aware about the issue.

I. Alternatives

i. Alternative 1: Investment on Childcare facilities by cutting tax credit

This alternative is designed to improve full-time workers’ work-life balance by encouraging women to keep participating in the labor force and increase the number of workers. The main idea of this alternative is to make an investment on childcare facilities with budget created by cutting tax credits for a family who has a spouse does not work or earns less than a certain amount.

Tax Credits system in Japan

Japan’s tax credit policy has encouraged women to focus on domain work for a long time. Japan spends about 0.5% of its GDP on financial support for families through the tax system (Kinoshita and Guo, 2015). If the spouse’s total earned income is less than 380,000yen (around $3,089), the family can gain spouse deduction of 380,000yen. The Special Spouse Deduction is listed below.

Figure2: Special Spouse Deduction

If the spouse works as a part-time and earns less than 1,030,000yen (around $8,583) per year, which is the sum of minimum income deduction (figure3) and basic deduction, he or she does not have to pay income tax and special income tax for reconstruction. Also, he or she does not have to pay residential taxation on income basis while his or her spouse can gain spouse deduction. Therefore, generally, if the spouse does not work as full-time, the family can gain a large amount of tax credit annually.

Figure3: Earned Income Deduction (Resource: National Tax Agency)

Spouse deduction has discouraged women to keep working as full-time and encouraged women to work as part-time after their first child, which can be seen in women’s M-shaped employment curve. It is more than 14,000,000 people that have been using spouse deduction (Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office, 2012).

Investment on Childcare facilities

Nordic countries, which are famous for its pro-family policies, do different use of budget. For example, there is no such tax credit policy like Japan in Finland (Kinoshita and Guo, 2015). Also, Nordics countries spend about 13% of total family-related spending on childcare facilities whereas Japan only spends 2.4% (2015).

In Japan, The number of children who are waiting for space in childcare facilities is 43,184 children in 2013 and the children whose age is under 3 is 39,055 (MHLW, 2015). It is not only in Nordic countries that have proven childcare facilities would help women work full-time but also other countries. For example, the French government has implemented policies, which directly support families with children, and almost all of French children whose age are three to six and a lot of two-years-olds attend state nursery schools (Crompton and Lyonette, 2006). 56.4% of women are in employment and the majority of them work full-time (2006). Also, the Netherlands has dramatically improved women’s work-life balance since the 1990s. Women’s employment rate was 30% in 1975, but it has been increased to almost 70% in 2011 (OECD). They started investing more on childcare facilities since 1990. It was only 5.7% of children under 4 years-olds in 1990 but in 2006, they achieved 25.9% (Kenjo, 2011).

Japan can lighten the burden for women by investing on childcare facilities with the budget, which is now used for tax credits. Childcare facilities would increase women’s participation in the labor, which lead to the decrease of workers’ workload.

i. Alternative 2: Regulation on Work Environment

This alternative is designed to improve the work-life balance of workers and also by increasing the time for male workers to commit more on domain works, it encourages women’s’ participation in labor so that Japan can maintain the overall capacity of its work force.

Working hours, Paid vacations and Parental Leave in Japan

Japanese people work more than 1,700 hours per year, which is the highest in OECD countries (Kenjo, 2011). This long working hours comes from a cultural aspect. “Service overwork” is a very commonly used term for an excuse of forcing overworking without payment. “Working in Japan involves quite a lot of volunteer spirit” (McCurry, 2015).

In terms of paid vacations, Japanese workers less utilize those compared to other developed countries. While Japanese workers take only 9 of their 18.5 days paid vacations, British workers use and average of 20 days paid annual leave and French workers take an average of 25 (2015).

In case of parental leave, there is a large gap between women and men. In 2007, 72.3% of women took parental leave whereas only o.5% of men did so (2015). In Sweden, which is famous for its flexible parental system, those rates are much higher. In Sweden, 89% of men and 97% of women took parental leave before their children become 8 (Takahashi, 2011). Takahashi argues that this difference between Sweden and Japan comes from their cultural aspects. In Japan, the ideology that man is breadwinner is still strong while their labor is based on liberalism and market system whereas the ideology is weak and the labor is based on social democracy and universalism in Sweden (2011). Despite the social differences, there are practical lessons that Japan can learn from Sweden such as adding flexibility on the use of parental leaves.

Restricting overworking hours and maintaining work environment so that workers can use their paid vacations and parental leaves are one way to improve their work-life balance. This alternative directly approaches the issue compared to the other alternatives.

Policy Proposal

Complex mixed policy of introducing the system to convert overworked hours into paid vacation, obligating workers to take both paid vacations and parental leaves, lengthening parental leaves can increase the chance for workers to actually increase work-life balance.

First of all, introducing a system to convert overworked hours into paid vacation can increase workers’ work-life balance and it can warn private companies to restrict its overworking hours. This should be included both “service overworking” and paid overworking. This system is already introduced not only in the Netherlands but also Germany and the U.K (Takahashi, 2011).

Secondarily, the government should obligate workers to take more than two-thirds of their paid vacations and parental leave. This number should be increased to 100% gradually. The government will track the number of workers who took those vacations by the annual report from private companies.

Moreover, the government should lengthen its parental leave up to 40 weeks. Also, there should be added flexibility on when to take those parental leaves. In Norway, the basic parental leave is 44 weeks and 100% replacement is shared between parents whereas in Japan maternal and parental leave is only 28 weeks (Kinoshita and Guo, 2015).

ii. Alternative 3: Obligating Counseling

This alternative is designed to make private companies improve work-life balance by obligating counseling for workers. By performing counseling once in a fiscal year, once at the same time as health check which is already mandatory. It can prevent workers from becoming ill and also warn private companies about its work-life balance.

Private companies’ awareness toward work-life balance

Only 23.6% of Japanese private companies have responded that they this it is very important to a question “How much do you care the importance of promoting its employees’ development of their skill regardless of gender?” (Takahashi, 2011). However, it was 58.0% in Sweden, 57.9% in the U.K, 35.3% in Germany and 34.0% in the Netherlands (2011). It is important to consider raising awareness inside private sectors when deciding which alternative to be the most effective.

Policy Proposal

Obligating private companies to provide mental counseling every year would help prevent workers from being over stressed and warn the managers to improve its working environment. By publishing the data at certain period, the government can further raise awareness of private companies toward work-life balance.

Severe working environment has led more than 2,000 people per year to commit suicide. Some experts argue that those people could not find enough evidence to claim compensation (The Japan Times, 2014). It should be also noted that the fear of being ostracized has prevented workers from claiming their health condition or the improvement of work-life balance.

This policy would be directly effective for people who actually suffer from working stress by providing opportunities for them to talk about their conditions.

I. Selecting Criteria

i. Criteria 1: Cost

The definition of “cost” here is how much it costs to implement each policy not only for the government but also for private companies.

ii. Criteria 2: Commitment

The definition of “commitment” here is whether the employers and employees at all level, also women who work part-time and housewives would follow the selected policy or not.

iii. Criteria 3: Efficiency

The definition of “efficiency” here is how long each alternative takes time to bring positive outcomes and how effective it would be to improve workers’ work-life balance.

iv. Comparison

Figure4: Criteria comparison

a) Alternative 1
Cost:
the budget for investment on childcare facilities comes from current tax credit. There are more than 14,000,000 people who are using the spouse deduction. Since the expenditure for tax credit is 0.5% of GDP (Kinoshita and Guo, 2015), the budget would be GDP in 2014,489.6triliion, * 0.005 = 2,448billion yen.
The average cost to build square meters of childcare facility is 298,000yen/m2 while the cost is 342,000yen/m2 in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, and Saitama, which have longer lists of family waiting for space (Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2015).
Therefore, the budget now used for tax credit is large enough to build more childcare facilities so that can ease the waitlist.
Commitment:
This alternative does not go against Japanese working culture such as leaving earlier than the boss does or experiencing the fear of being ostracized. Therefore, in terms of commitment, it has the least barrier than the other alternatives. Also, the large demand toward childcare facilities has been already proven. Therefore, commitment toward this policy is highly obtainable.
Efficiency:
Also, the government cannot cut the tax credit immediately but it has to be gradual. But when this alternative is implemented, women who decide to continue their full-time jobs would increase and the current workers’ workload would be distributed. Therefore, the efficiency of this alternative is midterm but the effectiveness is high.

b) Alternative 2
Cost:
The cost for alternative 2 has different nature compared to the other two alternatives. In terms of alternative 2, it can be implemented without any cost but the private companies might experience loss because more workers would take rest days such as paid vacations and parental leaves. But it can be assumed that some companies would experience loss, at first, but with the improvement of efficiency of workers and an increasing number of female workers, the total benefit would be the same as before the implementation of the policy or higher because of higher efficiency.
Commitment:
The commitment of workers would likely be slow because of cultural barriers. Even if this alternative has implemented, it is uncertain that workers all positions would actually follow the new regulation or not. Especially, whether the line managers commit on this alternative in each company would be important (McCarthy, Darcy, and Grady, 2010).
Efficiency:
This alternative likely to take the time to overcome the cultural barriers. However, the work-life balance issue has been rising in the public debate in Japan recently. Abe government has been tackling this issue with new policies such as “Womenomics”. Especially since the issue of decreasing population is related to work-life balance, the social tide is for the improvement of it. “When working hours are so long, it severely restricts opportunities to meet the opposite sex”(Smith, 2015). However, this policy directly approaches the overworking issue, so when private companies accept it, it would highly solve the issue.
Therefore, this alternative might take the time to be accepted in the companies but it likely to be highly effective.

c) Alternative 3
Cost:
It would cost additionally to provide counseling and the expenditure should not only be burdened on private companies but also for the government as subsidy.
Commitment:
In terms of commitment, the issue would be whether employees who have to take the counseling would answer to the counselors honestly or not. The fear of being ostracized by hurting the company’s reputation might hinder this program’s success. Therefore, the commitment is uncertain and it depends on a company to company.
Efficiency:
This alternative takes the least time to implement and would bring positive outcomes. However, it might be less effective overall compared to the other alternatives because the commitment varies from a company to a company.

I. Outcomes and Tradeoffs

i. Outcomes
Alternative 1:
It would increase the chance of women’s participation in the labor by easing the burden for childcare. Not only just easing the waitlist but also increasing the flexibility of those facilities, women would have more time to spend outside of domain works. It would lead to the improvement of overall workers’ work-life balance because there would be more workers in the labor force.
Alternative 2:
It would increase men’s participation in housework, which increases work-life. It also encourages household wives to continue working full-time or go back to the labor force.
Alternative 3:
It would raise awareness of companies toward work-life balance and prevent workers from feeling over stressed or from becoming a mental disorder.

ii. Tradeoffs
Alternative 1:
It would increase income gap between families to families because skilled women would benefit more and less skilled women would less. This gap has been hidden because of the tax credit.
Alternative 2:
It might lead to less work capacity because of one worker’s less working hours unless women decide to continue working or go back to full-time jobs taking the advantage of the added flexibility on parental leave as a benefit and male workers more participation in housework.
Alternative 3:
It increases the risk for employees to be ostracized or being fired at restructuring by damaging the company’s reputation. The workers who have mental disorder might feel more pressure by taking the counseling.

II. Recommendation: Alternative 1

Alternative 1 would be the most adaptable and effective policy to solve overworking issues in Japan. It can encourage women’s participation in the labor force, which leads to more distribution of workload. From the criteria comparison, this alternative is not only costly acceptable but also commitment is most likely obtainable. There are three more additional reasons to recommend alternative 1 other than the analysis above.

Cultural Aspect:

Whereas the other two alternatives are likely to experience cultural barriers, alternative one would experience the least. It is because it does not have to directly change the workers’ work-life balance.

Economic benefit:
First of all, there is no additional cost because the alternative just shifts the use of budget from one to another. On top of that, overall GDP would be increased because of increasing female workers. M-shaped women’s employment rate and the number of people who use spouse reduction indicates that current tax credit has been discouraged women’s participation in the labor force and burdened male workers to work more.

Bonus Effects:

Among all the alternatives, this alternative has the most bonus effects. First of all, it encourages families to have more children because of more and better childcare facilities. Secondarily, it encourages women to continue working full-time after her first child. Thirdly, total working capacity would not be changed because of there would be more female workers and distribute the workloads.

References

McCurry, Justin. The Guardian. “Clocking off: Japan calls time on long-hours work culture.” February 22, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/22/japan-long-hours-work-culture-overwork-paid-holiday-law

Chung, Frank and AAP. News.com.au. “The country working itself to death.” March 7, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/the-country-working-itself-to-death/news-story/5c29cd052ce1b58e14247fc5f349163b

The Japan Times. “Getting a grip on karoshi.” November 15, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/11/15/editorials/getting-a-grip-on-karoshi/

Smith, David. Economy Watch. “Government moves to end Japan’s culture of ‘death by overwork’.” March 5, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.economywatch.com/features/Government-moves-to-end-Japans-culture-of-death-by-overwork.03-05-15.html

McCurry, Justin. The Guardian. “Japanese firms encourage their dozy workers to sleep on the job.” August 18, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/japanese-firms-encourage-workers-sleep-on-job

MHLW. “Karoshi ni matsuwaru tokei shiryo (Statistics related to death from overworking).” Retrieved from http://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/05-Shingikai-11201000-Roudoukijunkyoku-Soumuka/0000069063.pdf

Kinoshita, Yuko and Guo, Fang. IMF. “What can boost female labor force participation in Asia?” March 2015. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp1556.pdf

Kinoshita, Yuko and Guo, Fang. IMF. “Nordic Lessons to Raise Female Labor Participation in Asia.” March 16, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/CAR031615A.htm

MHLW. “Hoikujo nyusyo taiki jido su (The number of children waiting for space in childcare facilities).” October 2014. Retrieved from http://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/04-Houdouhappyou-11907000-Koyoukintoujidoukateikyoku-Hoikuka/0000078425.pdf

Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office. “Haigushya kojo no minaoshi (Revision of the Spouse Deduction).” Retrieved from https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%E9%85%8D%E5%81%B6%E8%80%85%E6%8E%A7%E9%99%A4%20%E5%88%A9%E7%94%A8%E8%80%85%E6%95%B0

Kenjo, Eiko. RIETI. “Oranda ni okeru work-life balance: rodojikan to shugyobasyo no junansei ga takai syakai (Work-Life balance in the Netherlands: a society where the high flexibility on working hours and working place).” March 2011. Retrieved from http://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/11j030.pdf

Crompton, Rosemary, and Lyonnette. Acta Sociologica. “Work-Life ‘Balance’ in Europe.” December 2006. Retrieved from http://asj.sagepub.com/content/49/4/379.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr

Hara, Nobuko. Hosei University Department of Economic. “Work-Life balance seisaku no ronri: Hihanteki kosatsu (A Logic of Work-Life Balance in Japan: A Critical Review from Gender Perspective)”. March 10, 2011. Retrieved from http://repo.lib.hosei.ac.jp/handle/10114/6585

Takahashi, Mieko. RIETI. “Sweden no work-life balance: junansei to jiritsu sei no aru hatarakikata no jissen (Work-life balance in Sweden: Practice of work style with flexibility and independence”. March 2011. Retrieved from http://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/11j040.pdf

Gregory, Abigail and Milner, Susan. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. “Editorial: Work-life Balance: A Matter of Choice?” January 2009. Retrieved from http://core.ac.uk/download/files/130/104756.pdf

McCarthy, Alma and Darcy, Colette and Grady, Geraldine. Elsevier. “Work-life balance policy and practice: Understanding line manager attitudes and behaviors”. 2009. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053482209001119

National Tax Agency. “No. 1191: Haigusha kojo (Spouse Deduction)”. 2015. Retrieved from https://www.nta.go.jp/taxanswer/shotoku/1191.htm

National Tax Agency. “No. 1195: Haigusha tokubetu kojo (Special Spouse Deduction)”. 2015. Retrieved from https://www.nta.go.jp/taxanswer/shotoku/1195.htm

National Tax Agency. “No. 1410: Kyuyo shotoku kojo (Income Tax deduction)”. 2015. Retrieved from https://www.nta.go.jp/taxanswer/shotoku/1410.htm

National Tax Agency. “Kazoku to zei (Family and Taxation)”. Retrieved from https://www.nta.go.jp/shiraberu/ippanjoho/pamph/koho/kurashi/html/02_2.htm

Nihon Keizai Shinbun (Nikkei). “Kaigo Hoiku Shisetsu no kensetsuhi 12% zo: 14nendo, seibino sogai yoin ni (12% increase to build care and childcare facilities: one reason why the government could not build enough in 2014)”. October 27, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXLASFS23H4W_W5A021C1EE8000/

Japanese Trade Union Confederation. “Shotokuzei, Juminzei ha donarimasuka? (What is going to happen with income tax and residential tax?)”. Retrieved from https://www.jtuc-rengo.or.jp/roudou/koyou/hiseikiroudou/qa_haken/ans/chingin/006.html

Morioka, Koji. Gakujutsu no doko. “Hataraku hitobito no rodojikan no genjo to kenko heno eikyo (Actual Conditions of Working Time of Japanese Workers and their Effects on Health)”. 2010.

Fujioka, Mitsuo. Shizuoka University Economic research. “Finland to hikakushita nihon ni okeru nenreibetsu, shokugyoshibo no tokucho (The difference of peoples’ death according to age and occupation between Finland and Japan)”. December 20, 2002. Retrieved from http://ir.lib.shizuoka.ac.jp/bitstream/10297/4987/1/100524005.pdf

Karoshi 110net. Data from 1988 to 2012. Retrieved from http://karoshi.jp/syukei-0.html

The Global Gender Gap Report 2013. Retrieved from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf

Nihon Keizai Shinbun (Nikkei). Japan’s GDP. Retrieved from http://www.nikkei.com/biz/report/gdp/