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Japan PM says country on the brink over falling birth rate

nhchris 4y ago
Yet another article that believes low birthrates of the Japanese nation can be solved by adding foreign people to the Japanese landmass.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  While being looser on immigration won't help with their birthrate, it will help ease the effects of the birthrate. Japan really has two problems, with one spurring from the other. Problem 1 is low birthrates and an aging population, that can only be solved by Japan. The second problem that emerges from the first is all the effects of an aging population, like not having enough people to hire, work certain jobs, etc. For the second issue, bringing in foreigners will help. I think that Japan's low birthrate can only be fixed by a shift in their culture. I'm not going to pretend I know what that looks like or how successful it will be, I only know that it will be an uphill battle for the Japanese, and I wish them the best of luck.
- kderbyma 4y ago
  Yeah it's asinine. They just want to ship people around the world like they stocking shelves....
  - lost_tourist 4y ago
    Not really, immigration is a rather natural consequence of people moving around. Japan -heavily- limits immigration and citizenship and creates an artificial issue and then clutches their pearls at the age problem. It's kind of hilarious how they unnecessarily hang on to old societal norms about foreigners in the wake of problems like this. It's hard to feel bad for them.
    - eli_gottlieb 4y ago
      Ah yes, why not just cover over their deep social problems by importing people who have no better options but to work within them?
      - TillE 4y ago
        > importing people who have no better options This is literally how America grew. Mind, you want to actually integrate people instead of running some godawful Gastarbeiter program.
        neighbour 4y ago
        There's a reason that when most people go to Japan they are in awe of the politeness of the people, the safety felt while walking down the street, and the overall cleanliness of the place. Contrast this to your example, America (I am assuming you mean USA). While seeing rows and rows of homeless people is nothing new, today I saw a video of a homeless person slapping human faeces in the face of another homeless man. There is more to this problem than just trying to maximise growth.
        Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
        >This is literally how America grew. Except Japan is already "grown." That aside, It's better to let the _overpopulation_ problem in Japan solve itself by letting birthrates fall than to continue the issue by importing more people. It's not normal to have cities with population densites of 6,158 persons per square kilometer. Yes, there will be an economic price, but it will be short lived (30 years) rather than something that will continue forever.
        twelve40 4y ago
        and end up in a situation where 80% of the country is over 70 and cannot function? how is that better or short-lived?
        4y ago
- ronsor 4y ago
  That's how the vast majority of countries solve their population crises nowadays.
  - nhchris 4y ago
    The combined population of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and the EU is 916 million. Let's be generous and say they're all "solving" their population crises with immigration. The combined population of China, Japan, and South Korea alone is 1586 million. They have negligible immigration. So if "vast majority" is weighted by the number of people (the only sensible measure - Monaco and China should not have equal weight), then no, only a minority of countries are using immigration as a solution - just 37% of the countries I listed, by population.
    - filoleg 4y ago
      I feel like grouping China along with Japan+South Korea is a bit disingenuous. China only recently has stopped their massive population growth and is still #1 in terms of the population count in the entire world. Japan and SK have been on the decline in terms of population for quite a while, and were never close to having a massive population of such magnitude. Just to contrast how meaningless it feels to combine them - if you exclude Japan+SK from your count, the number becomes ~1411mil, barely a -11%.
      - nhchris 4y ago
        China's fertility rate is at 1.7, same as the UK and Netherlands, and lower than the US's 1.8. Their annual growth rate has been <1% since 1994, and they've just had their first year of population decline. Meanwhile the US is still growing (or rather, being added to) at 0.5%/year. So why should I exclude the most populous country in the world with sub-replacement fertility? Sources: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/popu... https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population
rcme 4y ago
The PM doesn't explicitly say why the population can't decline. I'm sure there are certain services, like social security in the U.S., that rely on a young tax-paying base. But, overall, the decline in population seems like a temporary problem with many possible solutions, some of which allow the population to fall gracefully. Assuming the wealth of the nation is fixed, halving the population would allow each citizen to own a slice of the pie twice as big.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  The big problem is capitalism, because it only incentivizes capital growing. When population declines or stays static over many years, there is much less opportunity for businesses to grow. Growth seems to be the main way our economy works and incentivizes behavior, so it makes sense that a lot of things could break. (For example, social security won’t work in its current form if the tax base stops growing.)
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    social security has nothing to do with capitalism.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  The entire pensioning system is dependent on growth and a young tax base. The systems you and I take for granted elsewhere are staffed by the young. And a decline in population means disproportionately your population is elderly, and this spells trouble for any physical-oriented industries and also means that the retirement age must go up. This means you either squeeze the younger generation harder (which in turn leads to burn out, outright quitting the workforce or leaving their elderly family to die) or let the older generation die sooner by taking their pensions away.
  - pydry 4y ago
    How about instead of letting automation and AI put people out of work (the media is, after all, just as confident that this will happen) we just keep the pension age where it is? Either that, or one of these narratives is bullshit. Perhaps both. Having fewer kids also means lower taxes needed to support schooling but that side of the balance sheet is curiously taken absolutely for granted in the mad rush to kill off retirement.
claytongulick 4y ago
> In Europe and America, right-wing movements point to it as a shining example of racial purity and social harmony. It's throw away lines like this that make the BBC and others like it lose credibility to me. If you're going to make such a claim, the least you can do is cite at least one example. I've never seen or heard any conservative in the U.S. laud Japan's "racial purity". What utter nonsense.
- vladd 4y ago
  > If you're going to make such a claim, the least you can do is cite at least one example. You can take a look at the process of naturalization (becoming a Japanese citizen): "Those who wish to be naturalized must either have no nationality or, in principle, lose their nationality by naturalization." Hence you could argue that this provision forbids foreigners that integrate into Japan nationality in remembering and being connected with their past identity (that might be seen as lacking purity).
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    What I'm referring to is the claim that "right-wing" in the U.S. considers Japan's problems to be a "shining example" of "racial purity". I haven't ever seen anything like this in any sort of main-stream conservative media. I think that making claims like this discredits the reporter by exposing a clear bias in reporting. Of course, it's possible that I just haven't seen it. In which case, it should be easy to find and cite an example - but a cursory google search doesn't turn anything up for me.
  - qwezxcrty 4y ago
    Wait, isn't this just an usual clause that forbids dual citizenship? Sounds OK to me.
  - FalconSensei 4y ago
    But other countries (like Germany) also don't like you having double citizenship
- kderbyma 4y ago
garbagecoder 4y ago
I bet this thread will be full of sane comments.

Yet another article that believes low birthrates of the Japanese nation can be solved by adding foreign people to the Japanese landmass.

_fat_santa 4y ago
While being looser on immigration won't help with their birthrate, it will help ease the effects of the birthrate. Japan really has two problems, with one spurring from the other. Problem 1 is low birthrates and an aging population, that can only be solved by Japan. The second problem that emerges from the first is all the effects of an aging population, like not having enough people to hire, work certain jobs, etc. For the second issue, bringing in foreigners will help. I think that Japan's low birthrate can only be fixed by a shift in their culture. I'm not going to pretend I know what that looks like or how successful it will be, I only know that it will be an uphill battle for the Japanese, and I wish them the best of luck.
kderbyma 4y ago
Yeah it's asinine. They just want to ship people around the world like they stocking shelves....
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  Not really, immigration is a rather natural consequence of people moving around. Japan -heavily- limits immigration and citizenship and creates an artificial issue and then clutches their pearls at the age problem. It's kind of hilarious how they unnecessarily hang on to old societal norms about foreigners in the wake of problems like this. It's hard to feel bad for them.
  - eli_gottlieb 4y ago
    Ah yes, why not just cover over their deep social problems by importing people who have no better options but to work within them?
    - TillE 4y ago
      > importing people who have no better options This is literally how America grew. Mind, you want to actually integrate people instead of running some godawful Gastarbeiter program.
      - neighbour 4y ago
        There's a reason that when most people go to Japan they are in awe of the politeness of the people, the safety felt while walking down the street, and the overall cleanliness of the place. Contrast this to your example, America (I am assuming you mean USA). While seeing rows and rows of homeless people is nothing new, today I saw a video of a homeless person slapping human faeces in the face of another homeless man. There is more to this problem than just trying to maximise growth.
      - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
        >This is literally how America grew. Except Japan is already "grown." That aside, It's better to let the _overpopulation_ problem in Japan solve itself by letting birthrates fall than to continue the issue by importing more people. It's not normal to have cities with population densites of 6,158 persons per square kilometer. Yes, there will be an economic price, but it will be short lived (30 years) rather than something that will continue forever.
        twelve40 4y ago
        and end up in a situation where 80% of the country is over 70 and cannot function? how is that better or short-lived?
        4y ago
ronsor 4y ago
That's how the vast majority of countries solve their population crises nowadays.
- nhchris 4y ago
  The combined population of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and the EU is 916 million. Let's be generous and say they're all "solving" their population crises with immigration. The combined population of China, Japan, and South Korea alone is 1586 million. They have negligible immigration. So if "vast majority" is weighted by the number of people (the only sensible measure - Monaco and China should not have equal weight), then no, only a minority of countries are using immigration as a solution - just 37% of the countries I listed, by population.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    I feel like grouping China along with Japan+South Korea is a bit disingenuous. China only recently has stopped their massive population growth and is still #1 in terms of the population count in the entire world. Japan and SK have been on the decline in terms of population for quite a while, and were never close to having a massive population of such magnitude. Just to contrast how meaningless it feels to combine them - if you exclude Japan+SK from your count, the number becomes ~1411mil, barely a -11%.
    - nhchris 4y ago
      China's fertility rate is at 1.7, same as the UK and Netherlands, and lower than the US's 1.8. Their annual growth rate has been <1% since 1994, and they've just had their first year of population decline. Meanwhile the US is still growing (or rather, being added to) at 0.5%/year. So why should I exclude the most populous country in the world with sub-replacement fertility? Sources: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/popu... https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population

rcme 4y ago

The PM doesn't explicitly say why the population can't decline. I'm sure there are certain services, like social security in the U.S., that rely on a young tax-paying base. But, overall, the decline in population seems like a temporary problem with many possible solutions, some of which allow the population to fall gracefully. Assuming the wealth of the nation is fixed, halving the population would allow each citizen to own a slice of the pie twice as big.

noahtallen 4y ago
The big problem is capitalism, because it only incentivizes capital growing. When population declines or stays static over many years, there is much less opportunity for businesses to grow. Growth seems to be the main way our economy works and incentivizes behavior, so it makes sense that a lot of things could break. (For example, social security won’t work in its current form if the tax base stops growing.)
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  social security has nothing to do with capitalism.
fzeroracer 4y ago
The entire pensioning system is dependent on growth and a young tax base. The systems you and I take for granted elsewhere are staffed by the young. And a decline in population means disproportionately your population is elderly, and this spells trouble for any physical-oriented industries and also means that the retirement age must go up. This means you either squeeze the younger generation harder (which in turn leads to burn out, outright quitting the workforce or leaving their elderly family to die) or let the older generation die sooner by taking their pensions away.
- pydry 4y ago
  How about instead of letting automation and AI put people out of work (the media is, after all, just as confident that this will happen) we just keep the pension age where it is? Either that, or one of these narratives is bullshit. Perhaps both. Having fewer kids also means lower taxes needed to support schooling but that side of the balance sheet is curiously taken absolutely for granted in the mad rush to kill off retirement.

claytongulick 4y ago

> In Europe and America, right-wing movements point to it as a shining example of racial purity and social harmony. It's throw away lines like this that make the BBC and others like it lose credibility to me. If you're going to make such a claim, the least you can do is cite at least one example. I've never seen or heard any conservative in the U.S. laud Japan's "racial purity". What utter nonsense.

vladd 4y ago
> If you're going to make such a claim, the least you can do is cite at least one example. You can take a look at the process of naturalization (becoming a Japanese citizen): "Those who wish to be naturalized must either have no nationality or, in principle, lose their nationality by naturalization." Hence you could argue that this provision forbids foreigners that integrate into Japan nationality in remembering and being connected with their past identity (that might be seen as lacking purity).
- claytongulick 4y ago
  What I'm referring to is the claim that "right-wing" in the U.S. considers Japan's problems to be a "shining example" of "racial purity". I haven't ever seen anything like this in any sort of main-stream conservative media. I think that making claims like this discredits the reporter by exposing a clear bias in reporting. Of course, it's possible that I just haven't seen it. In which case, it should be easy to find and cite an example - but a cursory google search doesn't turn anything up for me.
- qwezxcrty 4y ago
  Wait, isn't this just an usual clause that forbids dual citizenship? Sounds OK to me.
- FalconSensei 4y ago
  But other countries (like Germany) also don't like you having double citizenship
kderbyma 4y ago

garbagecoder 4y ago

I bet this thread will be full of sane comments.