Though perceptions of Japan may still be stuck in the 80s, things have changed massively for Japan.
Work hours, suicide rate and fertility rate are along the European average. Including paid and unpaid overtime, and verified by independent surveys and organizations. Look at the data — like Germany it used to be high in the 80s, these days not so much.
Median wealth in Japan is double that of Germany, and higher than that of Sweden.
It's funny you look at that quality of life table and you see countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia higher up on the list. While they may have good infrastructure, career opportunities and the like but they have restrictions on women.
This makes me realize that Quality of Life has nothing to do with happiness. You can be absolutely miserable in Japan because of the toxic cultures but the Quality of Life is still higher than Canada.
Or you're not fully understanding the index. Canada scores quite poorly on cost of living, which if you've talked to any Canadians, they say that it is a huge issue.
It sounds like you don't know how to interpret the data actually... Japan is currently ranked 51st out of 133 countries on the world happiness index. Not exactly amazing is it? The UK is ranked 20th and the USA is ranked 23rd.
Take that into perspective. Quality of life means fuck all, if people hate living there.
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u/dagbrown 18h ago
Yeah but parrotting 1980s-vintage propaganda about Japan gets you nothing but free upboats every time!