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Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

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Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#31

Post by Apocryphon »

duality wrote: post #23
themagician wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the alternative? All of the “developed” nations need immigration to prevent the social systems from completely falling apart. Our entire financial system is based on increasing population growth and the young paying to support the old. There aren’t enough young people. Without immigration, pensions, healthcare, social safety nets, property values… it all implodes. We go back to 1930 where old people just die…

It is weird to hear: 1) stop having so many kids, it's bad for the Earth, and 2) we're not having enough kids, let's substitute with immigrants.

Perhaps some of those kids will become rocket scientists and help us get off this Earth and continue our relentless expansion and consumption off-world.

Also, isn’t immigration a negation of 1)? The kids are already born, they’re just not in the same country.

Sarcasm aside, there are two systemic problems at play. 1) is ecological, and 2) is economic. The second may be physically easier to solve- but it still requires us to figure out a way to move beyond our capitalist system that a) prioritizes relentless growth and consumption, and b) has countries with large welfare programs that requires new workers and taxpayers to keep the elderly and the ill off the streets.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#32

Post by Apocryphon »

blfr wrote: post #30
Apocryphon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been non-ethnically Yamato people in Japan for at least centuries. However Japanese society or law might have treated them, are you saying the Zainichi are culturally less Japanese than ethnic Japanese? Seems like a lack of faith in societies to properly integrate new arrivals.

Seems like a lack of faith in societies to properly integrate new arrivals. Yes, exactly. I have little faith in that, because it rarely happens.

Why assume modern day East Asian countries will integrate new arrivals the same way as European and North American nations do?

And are you aware that international migration has been happening for millennia? All nations have people who have assimilated and integrated, to different degrees.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#33

Post by maximus1983 »

themagician wrote: post #12
jlawson wrote: post #6

So sad. Another ancient unique culture to be blended and homogenized into the global mass of undifferentiated Starbucks society. At least the megacorporations will get the cheap labor and undifferentiated consumers they want.

What is the alternative? All of the “developed” nations need immigration to prevent the social systems from completely falling apart. Our entire financial system is based on increasing population growth and the young paying to support the old. There aren’t enough young people. Without immigration, pensions, healthcare, social safety nets, property values… it all implodes. We go back to 1930 where old people just die…

And then the immigrants stay and get old and there is increased strain on the strained social systems. Most immigration systems in Europe assumed that the immigrants would go home once they have made some money.

At some point it is going to implode anyway. The UK in the last 25 years has completely changed due to immigration and our health system is basically about to fall over, there are massive cultural tensions between natives and immigrant populations that are on the verge of exploding in poorer areas (North of England) on almost a daily basis. None of this gets covered in the news but there are plenty of videos on Facebook, Youtube etc of clashes.

I suggest you read the "Strange Death of Europe".

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#34

Post by georgeburdell »

jdietrich wrote: post #22
Pmop wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not only conflicted. I'm annoyed. Immigration is being sold as a solution to aging and shrinking population. While opening to immigrants certainly helps solving the shrinking workfoce problem, it is nothing more than a duct tape over what is happening: people no longer want to have kids. After it's been long enough that immigrants are not even called this anymore, if we discover that young workforce is still shri…

The ageing and shrinking population is a temporary, one-off problem. There's no fundamental reason why a replacement or below-replacement birth rate is a problem - in many ways it's advantageous - but it's a really big problem over the next few decades because we didn't plan for it. We have a big cohort of baby boomers with long life expectancies, grossly inadequate pension savings and considerable political power. W…

>The ageing and shrinking population is a temporary, one-off problem. There's no fundamental reason why a replacement or below-replacement birth rate is a problem - in many ways it's advantageous - but it's a really big problem over the next few decades because we didn't plan for it.

Taking a perhaps unwarranted broad view, economies of scale allow for us to achieve certain productive activities that we would otherwise not be able to. Taken to an extreme, a tribe of 100 humans would never be able to develop a space program, for example.

Even aside from that, more people means more "black swan" thinkers/entrepreneurs that can have a population-wide impact. It took just one Einstein to develop General Relativity and now humanity will benefit forever.

Obviously humans are chewing through natural resources at an astounding and unsustainable rate, and we'll extinguish ourselves in a few hundred years if nothing changes. If your view is that humanity should co-exist in much smaller numbers in harmony with nature on Earth, your statements are reasonable. I take the optimistic view that we're meant to keep growing indefinitely beyond the Earth, and so a shrinking, aging population is indeed a concern.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#35

Post by slang800 »

whytaka wrote: post #15
Pmop wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not only conflicted. I'm annoyed. Immigration is being sold as a solution to aging and shrinking population. While opening to immigrants certainly helps solving the shrinking workfoce problem, it is nothing more than a duct tape over what is happening: people no longer want to have kids. After it's been long enough that immigrants are not even called this anymore, if we discover that young workforce is still shri…

Why does that matter to you? I don't know if I'll have children and if I do, it'll certainly be It's often said that people used to have a lot of kids in order to insure against child mortality. I understand financial stress et al may be one reason for the lower reproduction rate but less kids can also be a sign of success.

If successful people are having fewer kids than unsuccessful people then haven't we created a dysgenic system?

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#36

Post by ioltas »

laurieg wrote: post #10

I thought it might be useful to add a comment mentioning what the changes are in layman's terms. Prior to the recent change, everyone working in Japan was a "skilled" worker. There was no language requirement and essentially anyone with a degree was eligible. This didn't cover manual labour jobs etc. But at the same time, many young people were out working in convenience stores, fast food restaurants etc. Turns out t…

> This is true. In fact, by far the fastest route to permanent residence in Japan is marriage. You can get PR in 3 years if you are married to a Japanese national vs 10 years if you aren't.

More details on that. Getting a wedding visa the first time gives 1 year. At the second application one year later, one gets once again 1 year. At the third application one year later, you get 3 three. At this point, you could ask for permanent residency. So the first three years after the wedding are a hell of paperwork, but after that there is no need to go to the immigration office (入国管理局) which is close to Shinagawa in Tokyo.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#37

Post by philliphaydon »

duxup wrote: post #24

It will be interesting to see how Japan deals with it culturally. From folks I know who lived there they said that while everyone was nice, it was always clear that they were very much outsiders.

I would never want to work in japan. Doing business with japan is hard enough. You could create the most amazing service in the world. And it’s still inferior to a Japanese business on the grounds that it’s not owned by the Japanese. I love the country the culture the people. But working with Japan is the most difficult thing I’ve encounter in my career.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#38

Post by Apocryphon »

duality wrote: post #27
Apocryphon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why assume that Japanese culture is neither venerable nor attractive enough to withstand the phenomenon you’re describing?

Mass migration seems to be for economic benefits. A handful of people may immigrate out of appreciation of their new host culture, but millions or tens of millions doing so? Seems unlikely to me. They'll go to earn more money.

It sounds like Japan, with its own unique culture and governance distinct from Western nations, is not pursuing a course of mass migration but something more regulated and careful.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#39

Post by GreaterFool »

Actually, Japan doesn't begin anything. Japan has been doing this for years. The major shift in the last couple of years was introduction of new unskilled visas.

I don't follow that too closely but IIRC what Japan introduced first was a guest worker visa for entry level positions such as convenience store workers. These workers would receive Japanese language training in their home countries and then come to work in Japan for 2 years, or something like that.

I think this was the pilot program. Must've gone well since later on Japan relaxed the requirements for unskilled workers in general.

Meanwhile Japan made it easier for skilled workers to get a PR. I think on "engineer" (there's nuance to what it means and how it works) one would require 10 years to get PR. Then HSFP (see my other comments) was introduced which I believe lowered that to 5 years, initially. Then HSFP was amended to to 1 and 3 years depending on Type 1 (more points on the scale) and Type 2. This happened while back. Year or two ago.

The most recent change is new visas for unskilled workers with a path to PR.

Again, all of this has been going on for years. Nothing began just now :)

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#40

Post by duxup »

philliphaydon wrote: post #37
duxup wrote: post #24

It will be interesting to see how Japan deals with it culturally. From folks I know who lived there they said that while everyone was nice, it was always clear that they were very much outsiders.

I would never want to work in japan. Doing business with japan is hard enough. You could create the most amazing service in the world. And it’s still inferior to a Japanese business on the grounds that it’s not owned by the Japanese. I love the country the culture the people. But working with Japan is the most difficult thing I’ve encounter in my career.

Yeah a few people I know who have worked there enjoyed it but the sort of mechanics about how you have to work, traditions.... they love that in the US they can break so many "rules" and it's thought of as innovative, not the end times.
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