5 ms·

I wont pretend to know the full story of what's going on in Japan, but their government strikes me as rather xenophobic and terrified of change. There was a pe

by warent 3y ago

I wont pretend to know the full story of what's going on in Japan, but their government strikes me as rather xenophobic and terrified of change. There was a period where I was strongly interested in going to Japan and potentially starting a life there, despite what I'd heard about their work culture and social issues, but even still found it almost impossible due to their prohibitive immigration restrictions. This put me off it entirely, and I doubt I'm the only one. Not to be rude but it seems like the Japanese government would do well to be a little bit humbled by what's going on and start trying to appeal more to the people and to foreigners so they can start to restore their country. Instead they just seem to be subbornly plowing head first off the cliff. Not to say the USA is much different.

4dayworkweek4u 3y ago
> I'm fleeing the west and moving to beautiful Japan. > Japan should become the west. Leave people alone... let them live how they want. (You be liberal / tolerant).
aksss 3y ago
By the numbers, the USA is much different, even just counting legal and ignoring illegal migration.
manojlds 3y ago
How can you even compare that to US?
whimsicalism 3y ago
Oh come on, the United States doesn't have even close to as restrictive an immigration policy as Japan. No nuance.
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  The parent comment is ridiculously ignorant. Nearly 45.3 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2021, the most since census records have been kept. In 2021, immigrants comprised 13.6 percent of the total U.S. population, a figure that remains short of the record high of 14.8 percent in 1890 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested... Japan is ~2% In 2021, approximately 2.76 million residents of foreign nationality were registered in Japan, making up about 2.2 percent of the population. https://www.statista.com/statistics/687809/japan-foreign-residents-total-number/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/687809/japan-foreign-res...
aneutron 3y ago
I completely agree with your assessment and I was in the same boat where I wanted to live there despite all of that. And while I do believe that having a more open immigration policy may be beneficial (it's practically the cheat code for declining populations), I genuinely believe they would do much more if they focused on strengthening their social safety net (unemployment, parental leaves), cracking down on the toxic work cultures (much more aggressively, not in the current way, where they favor employers over employees and use social shame for everything, although that's Japanese culture in a sense ...), and making family minded policies (massive tax breaks or direct aid for children)
- midoridensha 3y ago
  Japan already has most of the things you're asking for. It's really hard to get fired from a salaried job in Japan, they have parental leave, there is direct aid for children plus tax breaks (and more coming soon). The main problem is the toxic work culture (too much overwork mainly), and that's easing up now as the dinosaurs age out and younger people take over, though they still have a long way to go. Japan has the most open immigration policy in the world for skilled workers. But it's a hard place to immigrate to because of the language barrier.
bluepizza 3y ago
What immigration restrictions? All it takes for you to get an Engineer visa is a diploma and a sponsored job offer. The sponsor doesn't have to pay anything for the sponsorship, and doesn't have to present any sort of labor market documentation. The Japanese immigration system is much more open than USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, and most EU countries.
- jaipilot747 3y ago
  Add in their points-based system for highly skilled professionals (that allows for permanent residence after just 1 year), and it becomes a very attractive option if the cultural, workplace and language requirements are workable for you.
version_five 3y ago
Countries like Canada seem to think importing cheap labor from other countries is the way to keep growing and not have to make adult decisions about how to deal with a declining birth rate. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom for developed countries and everything else is called xenophobic. The main irony I see is that the biggest proponents are companies, but they frame it as a cultural issue, like how could people be against immigration, when they really just want population growth and wage suppression. It will be interesting to see which policy makes more sense in the long run.
- ivalm 3y ago
  Immigration makes sense as you tend to preferentially select the more capable/active people, which is generally the kind of populace you want.
  - Grum9 3y ago
    Well the moron thats running Canada is gonna end up with the homeless kind at this rate, he sees immigration as an absolute good its just he hasnt given any thought as to where hes gonna put them all https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/dq230322f-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/dq230... over 1 million in a single year, thats like if 8.5 million just showed up in the US creating a new New York.
- rospaya 3y ago
  As far as I know there is no way to increase birth rates. No formula, no payout, no policy that will guarantee that a country will have more births, except maybe a bump.
  - joyeuse6701 3y ago
    Abortion bans is one attempt.
    - rospaya 3y ago
      Romania shows that it can only create a temporary effect. Also women start dying.
Bran_son 3y ago
> terrified of change How can they be terrified of change, when their economy is at the cutting edge of several fields, and the dramatic changes of automation that they embraced and developed? Or do you mean that there is one particular sort of change they don't want? The way that, say, environmentalists are "terrified of change" when they oppose climate change and deforestation? > their government Just their government? The Japanese people themselves demand mass immigration?
- CharlieDigital 3y ago
  > How can they be terrified of change It's obvious that there's a distinction between technological change and social/cultural change. Japanese strike me as very conservative when it comes to social/cultural shifts. Compare it to Taiwan, for example, and there is a big difference (to be fair, Taiwan probably has less cultural history to begin with).
  - Bran_son 3y ago
    So we've moved from terrified of change, to embracing some changes and resisting others. Even in culture, Japanese fashion, art, architecture, music, entertainment, and cuisine have all seen recent changes. Yet they refuse to change some social/cultural values. What makes this a phobia worth pathologizing, instead of a legitimate preference deserving of respect? For example, when Kashmir decried being stripped of autonomy [1], were they also just being phobic and terrified of change? [1] Kashmir’s new status could bring demographic change, drawing comparisons to the West Bank - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/08/kashmirs-new-status-could-bring-demographic-change-drawing-comparisons-west-bank/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/08/kashmirs-new...
    - CharlieDigital 3y ago
      You're fighting a strawman; no one has made any comments to this being "a phobia worth pathologizing". As far as I can tell, folks are just commenting on how this affects their demographics and ability to scale social services in the coming decades as their tax base shrinks. That's a real problem. I don't see how you read any other intent.
mynameishere 3y ago
restore their country A country is not a place on the map. It is the people themselves. If you replace the people with another people you have destroyed the country. Anyway, long term, Japan would be better off with a smaller population.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
There's widespread rhetoric (not to say propaganda) that immigration is good and that immigration must be increased. Not so. Countries and people are absolutely free to decide how much immigration they want to allow, if at all.
surgical_fire 3y ago
I went to Japan a few years ago. Just tourism, I love the history and culture of the place, and can read and speak some Japanese. Honestly, the place is doing great. No restoration necessary. I don't see how it would be any better by making immigration easier, it would only lower the cultural and social cohesion of a very insular place. This is a bizarre consequence of capitalism, this expectation of infinite growth and an infinite supply of labor. Preferably cheap labor.
Ferret7446 3y ago
> their government strikes me as rather xenophobic and terrified of change. If you consider historical precedent I don't think you can blame them for that.

by warent 3y ago

4dayworkweek4u 3y ago

> I'm fleeing the west and moving to beautiful Japan. > Japan should become the west. Leave people alone... let them live how they want. (You be liberal / tolerant).

aksss 3y ago

By the numbers, the USA is much different, even just counting legal and ignoring illegal migration.

manojlds 3y ago

How can you even compare that to US?

whimsicalism 3y ago

Oh come on, the United States doesn't have even close to as restrictive an immigration policy as Japan. No nuance.

WillPostForFood 3y ago
The parent comment is ridiculously ignorant. Nearly 45.3 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2021, the most since census records have been kept. In 2021, immigrants comprised 13.6 percent of the total U.S. population, a figure that remains short of the record high of 14.8 percent in 1890 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested... Japan is ~2% In 2021, approximately 2.76 million residents of foreign nationality were registered in Japan, making up about 2.2 percent of the population. https://www.statista.com/statistics/687809/japan-foreign-residents-total-number/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/687809/japan-foreign-res...

aneutron 3y ago

I completely agree with your assessment and I was in the same boat where I wanted to live there despite all of that. And while I do believe that having a more open immigration policy may be beneficial (it's practically the cheat code for declining populations), I genuinely believe they would do much more if they focused on strengthening their social safety net (unemployment, parental leaves), cracking down on the toxic work cultures (much more aggressively, not in the current way, where they favor employers over employees and use social shame for everything, although that's Japanese culture in a sense ...), and making family minded policies (massive tax breaks or direct aid for children)

midoridensha 3y ago
Japan already has most of the things you're asking for. It's really hard to get fired from a salaried job in Japan, they have parental leave, there is direct aid for children plus tax breaks (and more coming soon). The main problem is the toxic work culture (too much overwork mainly), and that's easing up now as the dinosaurs age out and younger people take over, though they still have a long way to go. Japan has the most open immigration policy in the world for skilled workers. But it's a hard place to immigrate to because of the language barrier.

bluepizza 3y ago

What immigration restrictions? All it takes for you to get an Engineer visa is a diploma and a sponsored job offer. The sponsor doesn't have to pay anything for the sponsorship, and doesn't have to present any sort of labor market documentation. The Japanese immigration system is much more open than USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, and most EU countries.

jaipilot747 3y ago
Add in their points-based system for highly skilled professionals (that allows for permanent residence after just 1 year), and it becomes a very attractive option if the cultural, workplace and language requirements are workable for you.

version_five 3y ago

Countries like Canada seem to think importing cheap labor from other countries is the way to keep growing and not have to make adult decisions about how to deal with a declining birth rate. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom for developed countries and everything else is called xenophobic. The main irony I see is that the biggest proponents are companies, but they frame it as a cultural issue, like how could people be against immigration, when they really just want population growth and wage suppression. It will be interesting to see which policy makes more sense in the long run.

ivalm 3y ago
Immigration makes sense as you tend to preferentially select the more capable/active people, which is generally the kind of populace you want.
- Grum9 3y ago
  Well the moron thats running Canada is gonna end up with the homeless kind at this rate, he sees immigration as an absolute good its just he hasnt given any thought as to where hes gonna put them all https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/dq230322f-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230322/dq230... over 1 million in a single year, thats like if 8.5 million just showed up in the US creating a new New York.
rospaya 3y ago
As far as I know there is no way to increase birth rates. No formula, no payout, no policy that will guarantee that a country will have more births, except maybe a bump.
- joyeuse6701 3y ago
  Abortion bans is one attempt.
  - rospaya 3y ago
    Romania shows that it can only create a temporary effect. Also women start dying.

Bran_son 3y ago

> terrified of change How can they be terrified of change, when their economy is at the cutting edge of several fields, and the dramatic changes of automation that they embraced and developed? Or do you mean that there is one particular sort of change they don't want? The way that, say, environmentalists are "terrified of change" when they oppose climate change and deforestation? > their government Just their government? The Japanese people themselves demand mass immigration?

CharlieDigital 3y ago
> How can they be terrified of change It's obvious that there's a distinction between technological change and social/cultural change. Japanese strike me as very conservative when it comes to social/cultural shifts. Compare it to Taiwan, for example, and there is a big difference (to be fair, Taiwan probably has less cultural history to begin with).
- Bran_son 3y ago
  So we've moved from terrified of change, to embracing some changes and resisting others. Even in culture, Japanese fashion, art, architecture, music, entertainment, and cuisine have all seen recent changes. Yet they refuse to change some social/cultural values. What makes this a phobia worth pathologizing, instead of a legitimate preference deserving of respect? For example, when Kashmir decried being stripped of autonomy [1], were they also just being phobic and terrified of change? [1] Kashmir’s new status could bring demographic change, drawing comparisons to the West Bank - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/08/kashmirs-new-status-could-bring-demographic-change-drawing-comparisons-west-bank/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/08/kashmirs-new...
  - CharlieDigital 3y ago
    You're fighting a strawman; no one has made any comments to this being "a phobia worth pathologizing". As far as I can tell, folks are just commenting on how this affects their demographics and ability to scale social services in the coming decades as their tax base shrinks. That's a real problem. I don't see how you read any other intent.

mynameishere 3y ago

restore their country A country is not a place on the map. It is the people themselves. If you replace the people with another people you have destroyed the country. Anyway, long term, Japan would be better off with a smaller population.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

There's widespread rhetoric (not to say propaganda) that immigration is good and that immigration must be increased. Not so. Countries and people are absolutely free to decide how much immigration they want to allow, if at all.

surgical_fire 3y ago

I went to Japan a few years ago. Just tourism, I love the history and culture of the place, and can read and speak some Japanese. Honestly, the place is doing great. No restoration necessary. I don't see how it would be any better by making immigration easier, it would only lower the cultural and social cohesion of a very insular place. This is a bizarre consequence of capitalism, this expectation of infinite growth and an infinite supply of labor. Preferably cheap labor.

Ferret7446 3y ago

> their government strikes me as rather xenophobic and terrified of change. If you consider historical precedent I don't think you can blame them for that.