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What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

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Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#101

Post by anovikov »

I am not at all concerned about this problem. At this point, society mostly need people as consumers, so quality is not as important as it used to be (in democratic countries it's a bit more complicated because people vote - but this is solvable too).

Because there are no resource or technology constraints that prevent solving it, just regulatory concerns, and because regulatory concerns are easy to solve in unfree countries almost by definition, and because unfree countries face this problem to a larger degree than free ones so will be also forced to act sooner, and because once they figure the solution it will become imperative for all other countries to do the same or quickly cease to exist so regulatory concerns will be quickly overcome - there is really no way this won't be satisfactorily solved.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#102

Post by Tor3 »

pseudo0 wrote: post #86
Tor3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What percentage of the Japanese workforce is working in the fields? Most industrial economies are in the 1-2% range for agriculture. And someone in their 50s can easily ride a tractor. Manual labor in the fields is not a productive use of labor in a first-world economy - the fact that it's still happening demonstrates slack in the system that can be absorbed.

Rice fields, around here at least. That's always been very labor intensive. They do use tractors to do some of it, but around the periphery of every field it's still done manually. Rice fields are very different from wheat production.

In my country strawberries are picked manually. There's yet no mechanical solution which can do what humans can, with respect to quality and more. And that's already a problem, without seasonal immigration there will be no strawberries on the market, simple as that. There are many other kind of work which still requires a young healthy work force.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#103

Post by bulbar »

fastball wrote: post #38
bulbar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Fair enough, that's not insignificant. As a German, I feel sorry that you feel the UK got flooded with my people, as they are one of the biggest part of the immigrants.

My understanding is, the "original flood" from India, just like the turkey workforce in Germany, was desperately needed back then, "flooding a dry land" so to say.

Just as in Germany, a significant portion of doctors (30%) in the UK were born in another country. So it seems they (just as Germany) still pretty much rely on foreign workforce which is also why the numbers didn't go down after brexit even with the foreigner unfriendly political climate that caused it.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#104

Post by ephimetheus »

cwyers wrote: post #58

I am really shocked at the tone of so many of the comments here. Did HN become a breeding ground for xenophobia at some point? Has it always been that and is it just way more mask off now?

I’ve noticed this too. I think it started around the time of the first round of big tech layoffs in the US, and when the US ratcheted up the price for H1B(?) visas.

Seems like economic uncertainty or fear of it breeds xenophobia. Who knew

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#105

Post by HerbManic »

theturtlemoves wrote: post #63

You know, many eastern countries apparently intuitively think in cycles. The west tends to think linearly: "We're trending upwards, argh argh overpopulation, famine, death. We're trending downwards, argh argh population collapse, famine, death". Same with the perception of time. My country sees time as a line. I once had an interesting training where the instructor pointed this out. She went on to say that seeing tim…

I do find it funny that some folks treat this is like the complete end of Japan (or whatever) nation, like you said a straight line down. But eventually it will bottom out and potentially rebound a bit. It find on the way up or at the top, and it will be fine at the bottom once the trends return but the issue really is the pain of the phase shift.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#106

Post by pseudo0 »

Tor3 wrote: post #102
pseudo0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of the Japanese workforce is working in the fields? Most industrial economies are in the 1-2% range for agriculture. And someone in their 50s can easily ride a tractor. Manual labor in the fields is not a productive use of labor in a first-world economy - the fact that it's still happening demonstrates slack in the system that can be absorbed.

Rice fields, around here at least. That's always been very labor intensive. They do use tractors to do some of it, but around the periphery of every field it's still done manually. Rice fields are very different from wheat production. In my country strawberries are picked manually. There's yet no mechanical solution which can do what humans can, with respect to quality and more. And that's already a problem, without…

That's the whole point of price signals though: luxury foods like strawberries will get more expensive if young, physically fit workers are in higher demand. People will shift their consumption accordingly. Maybe the strawberry pickers will end up working in nursing homes, and that's fine.

Rice in Japan apparently also benefits from extensive farm subsidies and protectionism. So it's ironic to point to those jobs as a risk for an aging workforce, when they are fundamentally just government make-work jobs. Sure food security is a concern, but it can be achieved in a much more efficient way.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#107

Post by znpy »

justanotherjoe wrote: post #80
theturtlemoves wrote: post #63

You know, many eastern countries apparently intuitively think in cycles. The west tends to think linearly: "We're trending upwards, argh argh overpopulation, famine, death. We're trending downwards, argh argh population collapse, famine, death". Same with the perception of time. My country sees time as a line. I once had an interesting training where the instructor pointed this out. She went on to say that seeing tim…

Except in growth imperative system we have, to stop growing is not to not grow, it is to spiral into a cascade failure

Congrats you missed the point completely

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#108

Post by HerbManic »

skeledrew wrote: post #85

Neither immigrants nor robots will prevent them from becoming essentially extinct as an ethno-national group if they don't do something serious to stimulate the fertility rate. They need to find the root of why Japanese aren't having kids and resolve it. I'd say it's due primarily to the collision of their values with Western values, particularly concerning family and workplace roles. The core issue is actually being…

I suspect part of the problem is that people are worked hard and don't really have a vision of the future that they are actively building towards as a nation. Hard work alone doesn't dissuade people from having kids but not having a positive or even constant future target combined with that can cause folks to just give up on that kind of aspiration.

This is an issue that develops over decades and places like Japan, South Korea and potentially China, this is already baked in to the point that it is unstoppable. The same is coming to many other nations over the coming decades.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#109

Post by HerbManic »

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 unfortunate flip side of this is that when you bring in a lot of immigrants, it can keep a lot of markets pumped up far beyond what the markets would usually dictate.

Here in Australia, we tipped below replacement rate in 1976 and it has never recovered, we just increase immigration to cover the gap. Culturally this has been brilliant but economically it has made some oddities in that housing is through the roof as there is far more customers for it than their would have been otherwise. But it does provide a lot of younger workers that manage to keep the pension system going and the demand on that system is only going to grow for decades to come.

The alternative is that you restrict immigration and we end up in the Japan position. A crumbling pension system and a lack of people to keep ever maintenance up of a lot of infrastructure and sheer labor availability.

I have wondered that as this situation grows globally, what happens when a lot of nations that have typically had a lot of emigration end up shutting the tap off as yhey feel they need their people more in their country? They can starve others of immigrants and potentially become a large political tool in decades to come. Interesting times ahead.

It is the difference between a solution and a predicament. A solution fixes the issue, a predicament has only response merely that try to take the least bad path down. This looks like a predicament.

I do fear for the younger folks, the kids and a generation or two afterwards nowadays as they are going to end up lumped with this mess. But after that things should settle down into a new stable phase. This isn't the end of civilizations it is just a re-calibration, it just take generations to occur.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#110

Post by HerbManic »

Insanity wrote: post #3

Necessity is the mother of innovation. I guess they’re pretty optimistic that they can automate away the humans needed to sustain an aging population. Not a bet I would be willing to take though lol.

I suspect this is why China is going in so hard of humanoid robots over the last few years. They have seen a potential future in Japan and are now trying to avoid this at all costs. It is big long term bet but we will know if it worked in about 20-40 years.
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