Well, I live in Finland, and I've only ever worked in software here. It's pretty much the opposite of Japan, and I think there are some good ways and some bad w

Well, I live in Finland, and I've only ever worked in software here. It's pretty much the opposite of Japan, and I think there are some good ways and some bad ways in which that happens. What I believe is that making more money buys more options. Japan's actual GDP per capita is surprisingly low for a country with such a strong and well educated population. Working conditions would probably improve significantly there if that number doubled or tripled overnight, because of the second order effects: A lot of people would be willing, at least now and then, to leave the extra money on the table in exchange for e.g. not working 80 hour weeks. Anyone who tells you the opposite has not thought hard enough about what making more money really means. Finland's GDP per capita is surprisingly strong by the same token for a country with such aggressive taxation policies, and no "game breaking" natural resources. (Norway has oil and they are absolutely loaded. Sweden doesn't, but they have neoliberalized a lot since the 1970s.) A few factors which really help this: Finnish people have sky high English proficiency, especially in engineering, and aiming from the start at an international or at the very least EU-wide market is the norm here for tech companies. The Finnish market is only 5 million people, and firms really do just make much more money and much better products when markets are large enough for them to specialize. I suspect Japanese companies might be caught in a strange middle-market-size trap where the ~100 million population is just large enough that few companies truly feel the need to aim internationally, but in practice it is actually a quite small economy in the modern world to have as your only home base.