Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

konichivalue.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 201 posts

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#31

Post by Retric »

eska wrote: post #10

There is no “zero” immigration policy, this is a strawman. Controlled immigration is different from opening the floodgates. Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution.

> no country has reversed its birth rate problem.

America has, it reversed below subsistence rate birth rates. More importantly despite some years of negative population growth the net long term trend is slow population growth.

So despite both issues the long term trend is slow net population growth. Thus significantly below subsistence birth rates where flipped from a massive issue to a non issue.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#32

Post by Tor3 »

jojobas wrote: post #8

Whatever the answer to people having fewer kids is, it's not "cede your land to some other people who will". Japan's population around 1900 was mere 43 million people - when most of them were required to work the fields. Japan will be fine. Europe, on the other hand...

Around 1900 the median age of the Japanese population was somewhere in the twenties, in other words, they had a healthy and able work force relative to the population size. Today the median age is above 50, and there aren't many who can work the fields. In fact around here I see very old people doing that, and a lot of them can hardly walk normally, they're permanently bent.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#33

Post by bulbar »

Tor3 wrote: post #22
eska wrote: post #10

There is no “zero” immigration policy, this is a strawman. Controlled immigration is different from opening the floodgates. Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution.

Japan's population is dropping like a stone. Since I first arrived here some years ago the population has gone down by several millions. Countries which have more immigration (like my native one, also with a low birth rate) manage to keep up the population size, and, equally important, manage to keep the median age somewhat lower (the median age in Japan is now above 50). If immigration is not a solution, then I assu…

The main problem is that solutions would be very expensive and, unfortunately, politicians don't get (re-)elected to solve problems that manifest over the span of decades.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#34

Post by somewhatgoated »

malicka wrote: post #24
jesterson wrote: post #7

[flagged]

> crime rate hikes. No, not really. Broadly, immigration has no effect on crime-rates. In case-study after case-study, it’s shown immigration has little to no impact on crime-rates. This was even disproven after the height of the Syrian refuge crisis! But media likes sensationalist reporting, so public perception doesn’t match the statistics. > cultural demise. Meaningless, also created by the media. If you listen to…

Don’t pretend the people you are replying to care about actual facts. It’s all feelings and xenophobia (or worse) for them

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#35

Post by chaostheory »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #4

They’ll find it easy to keep their homogenous culture and shared traditional values. Why would the solution to “our people aren’t having enough babies” be “we should import different people to have their babies here”? Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism? It’s not even a bad thing, but even if it was, it’s a fact.

Because it takes 18 years to create an adult and nothing other than immigration is working at the moment.

If any country was truly serious about this problem, they would end social programs for the elderly and focus that funding for families.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#36

Post by arikrahman »

jojobas wrote: post #8

Whatever the answer to people having fewer kids is, it's not "cede your land to some other people who will". Japan's population around 1900 was mere 43 million people - when most of them were required to work the fields. Japan will be fine. Europe, on the other hand...

I completely agree.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#37

Post by Gud »

Retric wrote: post #31
eska wrote: post #10

There is no “zero” immigration policy, this is a strawman. Controlled immigration is different from opening the floodgates. Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution.

> no country has reversed its birth rate problem. America has, it reversed below subsistence rate birth rates. More importantly despite some years of negative population growth the net long term trend is slow population growth. So despite both issues the long term trend is slow net population growth. Thus significantly below subsistence birth rates where flipped from a massive issue to a non issue.

So it hasn’t?

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#38

Post by fastball »

bulbar wrote: post #30
eska wrote: post #10

There is no “zero” immigration policy, this is a strawman. Controlled immigration is different from opening the floodgates. Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution.

> Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution. Because those "floodgates" for the most part have never existed and are just fear inducing rhetoric. Immigration has always been insignificant in terms of the whole population and therefore can not solve systemic problems alone.

How do you define insignificant? From 1950 to 2000 (50 years), the foreign born percentage of the UK doubled from 4% to 8%. In the 20 years after that, the percentage doubled again to 16%. In the five years since 2020, the percentage has increased another 4 points to ~20%.

Not only is 13 million people not "insignificant" in my book, but clearly the trend is accelerating.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#39

Post by Erem »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #4

They’ll find it easy to keep their homogenous culture and shared traditional values. Why would the solution to “our people aren’t having enough babies” be “we should import different people to have their babies here”? Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism? It’s not even a bad thing, but even if it was, it’s a fact.

> Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism?

I'll bite.

In the US, for one, every single person has an ancestor that thanked their lucky stars the locals didn't think the way that you are recommending we think today. Or an ancestor that suffered because the locals did think that way.

We honor that heritage by paying it forward, lest we be lumped among the trash of history that punished the Irish, the Chinese, and the Jews for the cardinal sin of living down the street.

Lot of Americans in this forum, so that's why.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#40

Post by malicka »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #4

They’ll find it easy to keep their homogenous culture and shared traditional values. Why would the solution to “our people aren’t having enough babies” be “we should import different people to have their babies here”? Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism? It’s not even a bad thing, but even if it was, it’s a fact.

> the deep psychological truths about human tribalism

… that the races should keep to themselves? Yea, I’m going to have to disagree on this one.

This was pretty handily disproven by the New World. Mixing, sharing, cohabiting… this creates culture and makes us stronger. Isolation, protectionism, and fear makes us weak.

Post reply on HN