Japan wrestles with its views on ‘outside people’ amid population crisis
Japan wrestles with its views on ‘outside people’ amid population crisis
Low birthrate and ageing population pose ‘an urgent risk to society’, but can opening its borders to skilled overseas workers fix the problem?
Low birthrate and ageing population pose ‘an urgent risk to society’, but can opening its borders to skilled overseas workers fix the problem?
First, there is no "wrestling". The policy is clear. Second, the only way to fix declining population is to increase permanent residence, which means either a Permanent Residence Visa or citizenship. But it takes 10 years for Permanent Residence, and Japan bans dual citizenship. Work visas do not fix the problem. But work visas are popular because immigrants can be treated as slave labor.
In other words, the author of that article has done a small amount of research but is actually being far to generous to a xenophobic and racist government that's enabling the abuse of foreign laborers.
150the only way to fix declining population is to increase permanent residence
Of course that's not the only way, how did any population grow in the past? Not just by bringing in people from outside.
Another way is to have children, but that means supporting parents. Just seems silly to say migration "is the only way".
31You're right. I didn't write clearly. What I should have said is that if you think bringing in foreign workers is your solution to fixing the declining population, then you need to give those foreign workers permanent residence instead of giving them temporary work visas.
In other words, I was assuming the context of the article was known to readers without clearly stating so. Oops!
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I think they are also missing the fact that there are sections of Japan's society that would rather see it shrink (collapse) and retain its Nihon-ness than be diluted by outside influences.
24And that's their right, and not unexpected either.
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I think by "wrestling" they mean the general attitude towards foreigners, not the policy.
16But it takes 10 years for Permanent Residence, and Japan bans dual citizenship.
not for children of mixed parents
1Yes, it's true that they don't have to choose while they are children. And of course I didn't explain that it doesn't always take 10 years for PR because you could use the point system depending on your situation, and also that the Japanese government doesn't investigate whether people are dual citizens as long as they keep it a secret, but the government could in the future if it really wanted to, so you're still gambling, etc.
In other words, obviously it's a complex legal landscape, and my main goal was to expose the complete failure in focus in the original article and illustrate some of the starting points about the actual issues for those who are not knowledgeable about Japanese immigration law.
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The amount of xenophobia in those countries, they would def have a population collapse. But hey happy earth!
65Japan is totally fine with foreigners ... if you're western. Otherwise you can GTFO.
38Even white guys would never be able to assimilate with them. You are never Japanese even if you are half, even when you born in Japan move to overseas and come back to Japan — you are treated as an outsider.
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Japan is not alone in this.
The three countries that are getting hit with declining population are also the ones with some of the lowest migration rates in the world.
Japan.
Sth Korea.
China.
56Decades of government backed protectionism paired with an ageing population will do that. people were widely propagandised into xenophobia and that sort of thing tends to stick in the psyche of the community for generations.
That said, the older generations are the ones still holding onto those views and they will be forced to change eventually.
You can still find signs on restaurants or shops across Asia that say "no tourists" or things like that, but they are becoming less common, even in rural areas. there is still the language barrier with the older generations, which is part of the reason those signs existed, but the majority of younger people across most of east Asia have some level of English from their mandatory school curriculums. They learn more western history, more western customs, exposed to more western media, western style homes are popular to those who can afford them (the Japanese housing market is it's own deep, deeeep topic), etc. etc. so those people naturally become more open and accepting of immigration
I expect to see japan keep crashing for another 10 years or so though sadly, and while Korea has been fairly stable they are rolling towards the same sort of downturn themselves.
China has been slowing economically for some years now for the same reasons, but their situation is a little different as their government will do whatever is necessary to protect their image, above their actual economy, so it is hard to know what is really happening there. For example, the whole giving gold to home buyers to avoid crashing the housing market thing.
36Korea has been fairly stable they are rolling towards the same sort of downturn themselves
Korea is actually in a worse position than Japan, far from being fairly stable their reproduction rate has been crashing far quicker and passed Japan years ago.
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Oh, and they all share work cultures to which people are usually expected to devote their whole lives to work.
10Yes but these countries also have extremely low birth rates - 1.3, 0.8, and 1.2, respectively in 2021. Japan is finally feeling the effects and has an actively shrinking population. In 2022 it lost 556,000 people. To remedy this with immigration, they'd have to do quite the about face. There also isn't an endless source of immigrants - eventually the countries that people are emigrating from will economically develop and have lower population growth. Sub-replacement fertility rates is an issue in any somewhat developed economy nowadays. It's just the worst in East Asia. Countries need to figure out how to create a quality of life that will encourage stable population.
7it's clear that capitalism as it exists is incompatible with the continued existence of the human race, as evident by birth rates in basically every urban industrial country the world over.
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South Korea is running into the same problem. Most advanced economies have low birthrate, but South Korea has the lowest in the entire world. This has created an issue of a looming population crisis.
Typically countries fix this by allowing more immigration, but South Korea is incredibly xenophobic and many would rather attempt to deal with a population collapse than allow non-koreans into the country.
42SK immigration is hell. But there are an increasing number of foreign nationals in Korea. Tons of people from South and West Asia especially. And of course the ESL teachers lol
Maybe this will push them to 1) make certain visas easier to obtain and 2) publicly fund Korean foreign language education so dumbass Americans stop speaking English everywhere and then whining about how they can't work anywhere except in English. like no shit you can't work for a Korean company you dont speak Korean and never tried to learn. korean government should make more visas for people who actually want to live in korea and contribute rather than forcing every foreigner to keep the E2 visa and relegating their stay to being tied to their employer. where the fuck you gonna learn to become a hospice nurse if you can't even quit your job without leaving the country
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If Japan just adds subtitles like there is in anime then they will have all the white men come over
37That's not how that works
-1The white men coming over part or the option to turn subtitles on in my IRL HUD Settings part?
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28how many economies have to collapse before governments realize capitalism is broken
21I’m pretty sure you could have a socialist state that is as xenophobic as modern day Japan.
Not defending capitalism but just drawing a distinction that xenophobia isn’t solved necessarily by the destruction of capitalism.
10Since most governments are filled with people who have way more money than they can spend in a lifetime probably never.
I will never understand why people who live in poverty or barely get by look at some rich CEO/billionaire whatever moneybags person go "yeah this person will probably understand my hardships and make it right, let's make him governor or president".
A lot of politicians are completely out of touch and as long as they're doing well everyone must be doing well (or they simply don't care).
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Ugh, this is not an "urgent risk to society" this is an example that the whole world should follow
18The problem is that you still need a productive group of people to fund and care for retirees. Japan has the ability to absorb millions in its rural towns. It just doesn't.
17Immigrants don't want to live in rural towns. I remember when a group of refugees were bussed in Sweden and they revolted that they didn't get to stay in a city.
I mean even LOCAL people don't want to live in rural towns, that's why they're depopulated.
2And then we'll need more people to look after those young ones when they retire and then we'll need more people to look after those young ones when they retire and then we'll need more people to look after those young ones when they retire and then we'll need more people to look after those young ones when they retire
No, no more growth. It's going to hurt the current generation but it's for the greater good. It's time to have a population decline
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My grandfather would probably mutter something about how "you sleep in the bed you make." People have been calling this for more than a decade, but Japan would rather watch itself die than to encourage immigration (or, God forbid, enact changes to encourage a domestic population growth).
This isn't limited to the big evil capitalist politicians, either. Xenophobia exists across almost all layers in Japanese society across the country.
17Personally I support a no growth mindset. No more population growth, at worst a population stagnation but at best a population decline
10It’s great if your country doesn’t force the young to finance the old.
1I agree too. The fact is that our planet is simply fucked if we keep this ever urge for growth. It's not sustainable and the cracks are clearly showing.
People don't want to hear it but we should have a max 1 child limit per couple for at least some years or encourage people not to have children at all. Then when we've reached a healthy sustainable population have a 2 children max limit.
Less people = less consumption= less pollution.
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There's no risk to anything. Japan is doing God's work in reducing the world's population. Keep going, guys
16There's risk to the soon-to-be-elderly. I think their culture depends on the young to care for the elderly and they're about to have that upended to some degree.
I say this as a dumb american who has been to Asia but not Japan; I'm speaking way out of turn. If someone who is better-educated on this topic wants to correct me, I'd love to be better informed.
10Culture aside, pretty much every country has its pension and health care schemes set up as basically Ponzi schemes - they require young people (who don't need much healthcare and don't get pension) paying in to support the simultaneous payouts for the elderly. You have twice as many elderly as young, suddenly the young need to pay in twice as much.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
A certified IT specialist, he arrived in Tokyo from Sri Lanka a year ago, hoping to take advantage of job opportunities that have opened up as part of Japan’s efforts to tackle its population crisis and encourage more immigration.
With the population expected to decline dramatically in the coming decades – leaving a gaping hole in the workforce – Japan is quietly easing restrictions and accepting record numbers of migrants, mostly from Asian countries such as Vietnam, China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Data released in July showed a record population fall of nearly 800,000 but it also revealed a jump in overseas-born residents, to an all-time high of around 3 million, almost 50% up on a decade ago.
Bringing skilled workers from overseas is requiring a significant shift in a nation that not so long ago treated foreign labour as something akin to a necessary, if temporary, nuisance.
Despite the demographic challenges, Japan has remained reluctant to accept refugees and the number of applicants it grants asylum to annually rarely exceeds double digits.
Park believes it will be hard for Japan to lure large numbers of skilled workers due to language difficulties, dealing with the complexities of Japanese culture, and uncompetitive wages in many sectors.
The original article contains 1,043 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
16Japan is a super old civilization and they've been through plenty of challenging times. They may stick out the next 40 years and continue to do what they have been for the next thousand years.
You do you Japan!
7Its a bandaid solution.
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5Wow a historically fascist country built an ethnostate and maintained xenophobic sentiment treating outsiders like shit long after their attempt to colonize neighbors failed is now realizing that they've shot themselves in the foot..... sounds like the road America is heading down in 50 years, except USA never quite had the same ethnostate as japan
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