The Changing Attitudes Towards Nomunication in Japan
A growing number of workers in Japan are rejecting the idea that workplace-related drinking, also known as nomunication, and staying out until 2 a.m. with colleagues is essential to team spirit.
For my first six months in Japan, I taught English at an Eikaiwa (conversation language school, think teaching English meets sausage factory). Those months and my experiences are a topic for another day.
Saturdays were my favourite/bearable days because of the students. I had one-on-one lessons with an Aikido black belt, followed by the smartest two seven-year-olds I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I’m sure they have each started multi-million-dollar companies by now.
In the afternoons, there were one-on-one lessons with a senior executive from a major Japanese corporation who had returned to Japan after many years in the US. His weekends were golf in the morning and chatting to me for an hour in the afternoon to keep up his very impressive English language skills.
During one lesson in mid-December, he looked noticeably worse for wear.
When asked about it, he told me that he had been deep in the season’s obligatory drinking parties with clients, internal teams, collaborators, government contacts, subcontractors, etc. So far, he had been to 19 drinking parties in the last 25 days – and the events were set to continue well into the new year.
I know Christmas Parties from my life in Denmark and England, but not in a linked-up marathon form like this. And to make things even worse (at least for the senior executive’s liver), these parties and drinking events are not just a seasonal thing.
For decades, the ritual of after-work drinking parties in Japan, also known as nomunication, has been an unshakable part of corporate life in Japan. If you didn’t feel like going out, that was shouganai (untranslatable Japanese word with profound cultural meaning. Closest I can get is “It can’t be helped”)
Nomunication was where careers and contacts were nurtured, promotions hinted at, and office gossip flowed as freely as the beer.
Walk through Tokyo’s downtown areas today, and, at first glance, there are still plenty of salaryman workers sitting at tables with whisky bottles, placating red-faced bosses, staring off into infinity, visualising their post-midnight stumble to the last train or a capsule hotel.
Below that surface, though, things are changing, and the number of empty tables is growing, as attitudes toward nomunication are changing.
Changing attitude to workplace-related drinking
In 2023, Nippon Life Insurance Company surveyed over 11,000 people across Japan about their views on nomunication. A majority of 56.4% said it wasn’t necessary. This wasn’t just a generational revolt: respondents in their 20s (55.7%) and those in their 70s (59.8%) were broadly aligned.
The survey found a significant gender gap. While 52.1% of men still viewed nomunication as necessary, only 34.3% of women agreed.
Why the mood is shifting
When asking why people didn’t like workplace drinking parties, 48.3% of respondents cited ki wo tsukau — the effort of maintaining polite small talk and consideration of others’ feelings in a social drinking setting.
Others complained that it “feels like working overtime” (33.7%) or simply that they “don’t like alcohol” (28.8%).
There are other changes afoot in Japan that contribute to these changes.
For younger generations, fitness, hobbies, and side projects are increasingly prioritised over late-night bar hopping.
Simultaneously, work-life balance is a central topic in Japan’s struggle with falling birthrates. Gender roles are also seeing some change, as more fathers express a desire to share parenting duties.
Corporate culture catches up — slowly
Some companies have been actively adjusting their workplace culture to reflect these changes.
In 2023, Saiko Nanri, an executive at Mitsubishi UFJ, announced that her team would no longer be expected to attend after-hours drinking parties. She argued that they were unproductive and unfair to employees with young children — especially women.
Others have experimented with non-drinking social events, such as lunchtime gatherings, after-work coffee meetups, or team-building activities that don’t revolve around alcohol.
And when drinking does happen, it’s increasingly common for attendance to be optional.
COVID-19 and worker shortages
Other underlying reasons for the changing attitudes include the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote work, social distancing, and government restrictions temporarily eliminated after-work gatherings, and many are reluctant to return to the way things used to be.
However, if I were to point to one specific area, leading to these changes, and more, it is Japan’s shortage of candidates for many jobs.
For some regions, there are 2.5 jobs for every candidate. In such an environment, workers can exert greater pressure on the workplace to accommodate their values and wishes. Previously, this has been the other way around.
As a result, workers are less afraid of negative consequences, like risking missing out on a promotion, by saying no to joining a Tuesday evening nomikai (drinking party).
The rise of the sober salaryman
The rise of the sober salaryman
This is by no means the same as the nomunication disappearing. In traditional industries and older companies, it is still very much alive and kicking. It continues to serve as an important arena for relationship-building and informal evaluation.
But the default is shifting: what was once an unspoken obligation is becoming, in many workplaces, a genuine choice.
The changes are mirrored in the current wave of alcohol-free beer, like Suntory All-Free All-Time and Kirin Perfect Free. In 2020, Nagano’s Nema became Japan’s first non-alcoholic gin.
For expats in Japan, this means that you increasingly hear the adage “Only if you want to,” to invitations to a nomikai.
For a culture long defined by the ability to read the air and conforming to cultural and company norms no matter what, that’s a significant change.
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