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.
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The problem is that they need workers now and not in 20 years.
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You’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!
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.
And that’s their right, and not unexpected either.
I think by “wrestling” they mean the general attitude towards foreigners, not the policy.
But it takes 10 years for Permanent Residence, and Japan bans dual citizenship.
not for children of mixed parents
Yes, 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.
The amount of xenophobia in those countries, they would def have a population collapse. But hey happy earth!
Japan is totally fine with foreigners … if you’re western. Otherwise you can GTFO.
Even 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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Europe is the more or less same to be honest. You are never completely assimilated unless you look and speek the same as locals.
I think that is because you can’t really compare a country that’s for the most part populated with it’s natives (at least for the last centuries) versus a country that basically removed it’s natives and was populated from the beginning with people from different nations (like the USA, Australia or Canada). Immigration works differently when you integrate into a country that’s made out of immigrants. Versus a country where the natives are still living there as a majority.
Yes, I was thinking the same. Basically all america
Nah they accept foreigners as long as they speak the language. If anything halfies are often treated better due to their good looks.
That’s not exactly true. They’re fine with you being their temporarily, even for a few years. Try to raise a family there and that consideration goes away.
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Want to say that my personal experience nearly matches yours. I was allowed in the birthing room and held my wife’s hand as she gave birth. I was allowed to hold my son for approximately 30 seconds. Then I was kicked out of the hospital and not allowed to return for over a week. I was also expected to be back at work pretty much immediately.
Finding changing rooms I can use is definitely a trial. I typically assume I won’t be able to find one, and if my wife isn’t with me I plan to use the backseat of my car or similar arrangement.
The hoikuen workers (approximately translates to daycare, if you don’t know) don’t talk to me when I pick up my son, which is nearly every day. On the rare opportunity that my wife’s schedule allows her to get him, they won’t stop talking about every detail.
Yeah, gender roles are pretty fixed, and challenging said roles is hard.
Try to raise a family there
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for about 20 years as a matter of fact. No real trouble whatsoever myself, but I can’t even count the number of times now I’ve seen people give my Chinese wife shit and then fumble all over themselves when I (an American) walk up and introduce myself. One old guy at a ramen shop even had the balls to try to explain how much better western and Japanese girls are, while she was sitting right next to me.
Question: but how can they tell she’s not Japanese (I’m assuming she speaks Japanese)? E.g. many Europeans could pass as being from anywhere in the Americas+Europe as long as they don’t say anything and dress like a local. Are they that sensitive to facial structure differences?
What? Are you really saying you couldn’t tell if someone is from Spain or Russia? Germany or UK? Hair colour, eyes colour, skin colour, height, facial features are all completely different. Try finding blonde, 1.9m tall Spaniard with blue eyes for example. There are exceptions obviously, but 99% of the time you can easily spot a Brit/German/Polish/Russian in Spain. The same is true for Asia. I’m sure it’s very easy for them to tell Japanese/Chinese/Korans/Indians apart.
Sure, the percentages of certain traits in the population are radically different, but there is always enough variation within the population that you can find combinations without automatically having to conclude that the person is foreign. Maybe the variation is smaller within Japan, I know it’s larger in China, so maybe a Japanese woman would blend easier in China than the reverse?
I can only judge from media and people i met here in Europe, but for all of them the facial structure is pretty distinct between chinese and japanese people.
chinese, japanese, koreans, and orher asians have different facial features and are typically easily distinguishable
This would be after she’s introduced herself, but you can make a pretty good guess about most Asian people once you get used to the differences as well
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.
Oh, and they all share work cultures to which people are usually expected to devote their whole lives to work.
Yes 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.
it’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.
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.
SK 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
If Japan just adds subtitles like there is in anime then they will have all the white men come over
Japan’s depiction in anime has as much to do with reality as the USA does to it’s action films.
Bugger all to none.
Action movies feature lots of guns and product placement.
Americans have lots of guns and consume products!
shoots in the air in agreement while chugging a certified American Budd Light
oh shit is it the 4th already?
since ma died ain’t no body left who kin read the day sheets on the wall. We kin shoot 'em, just can’t read 'em.
That’s not how that works
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how many economies have to collapse before governments realize capitalism is broken
Ugh, this is not an “urgent risk to society” this is an example that the whole world should follow
The 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.
It’s not as easy as absorbing people into rural towns and I suspect you know that.
Yeah, but it seems better than the alternatives of letting those towns collapse.
So you’re going to have towns full of retired old people? Maybe also include their caretakers and maybe service workers supplying everything the caretakers need. Oh, and schools for the caretakers children. And teachers, obviously. And maybe some industry for the caretakers spouses to work at.
Retirees aren’t going to keep towns alive. They’re just usually among the last to leave.
Japan 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!
Japan is fucked long term
Its a bandaid solution.
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