Today, Japanese companies are adopting health management strategies to safeguard employees' well-being and ensure long-term viability. Takaharu Goto and his colleagues, in their study on the elderly, emphasize ikigai's role in work engagement and life purpose. Economically, prioritizing ikigai can lower insurance costs and societal expenses, highlighting its substantial potential.
Ikigai has considerable potentials
Nick: So with all these in mind, based on the study, what can contribute to higher levels of ikigai?
Takaharu: Our research shows that, as I said earlier, it is appropriate to consider that good affective psychological status is a fundamental condition for having higher levels of ikigai. We believe that by adjusting one’s affective psychological status, one's physical and social status can be improved, and that the elements of fulfillment and a sense of mission can be built upon this to contribute to the enhancement of ikigai.
Now, Japanese companies are currently employing variety of strategies to address the issue of health management, which can be defined that the protection of employee’s health with a view to ensuring the long-term viability of the company. In Mima-SONGS study, we investigate the ikigai of the elderly.
Our findings suggested that it is important for the energetics working with generation to have a perspective on ikigai or purpose in life or work engagement. From an economic standpoint, focusing on ikigai can lead us financial burden on insurance and ensure the individual thereby contribute to the reduction of national social costs, security costs, we believe that ikigai is a significant concept with considerable potentials.
Nick: Alright, so there's two things here. Really, your study revealed it starts with psychological health, one must have psychological health, and then from that, this leads to also maintaining physical and social health.
And then for the country, this is a positive thing; if someone has a sense of ikigai in their own age, it would suggest that they're proactive in community, they can look after themselves. And they're not a burden on the government, and they're not, I guess, eating up resources where they need care, or they need medical attention, or perhaps even psychological assistance.
And with Japan's aging population, the more healthy the elderly people out in the community, maybe they're contributing to the community. That's obviously a very positive thing, rather than, I guess, elderly people being very dependent on the government and funding. This is also something forecasting, as more and more Japanese age, there'll be more demand on government resources.
And added to that, is the decreasing population with more and more reduction in the work force. It's going to be very hard to tax a reduced workforce to fund the health of the elderly.
Takaharu: Exactly, yes. I think the results of this study, ikigai has very significant potentials, like reducing the cost of government insurances. Ikigai has the potential.