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What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

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111–120 of 201 posts

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#111
post #79
post #43

Make having kids a zero-cost endeavor. If that doesn't do it, make it a profitable one. It's as simple as that.

Children cost hundred's of thousands of dollars to raise, and that doesn't even count the opportunity cost of your own career progression as you have to spend a year of sleepless nights and possibly have one or both parents reduce their work hours to care for the child. The Japanese government already struggles to pay out pensions with its aging population, healthcare and pension costs are both rising, where do you p…

This touches on a core part of this. Don't think about it from a money point of view but form a labor/time point of view.

There is just not enough labor/time for people to have kids and also sustain the elderly that can no longer contribute to the same degree.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#112
post #78
post #43

Make having kids a zero-cost endeavor. If that doesn't do it, make it a profitable one. It's as simple as that.

It is not as simple as that. In my country giving birth is free. And you get economic support for every child. For most people it's still an economic burden to some extent, but for the majority it's not something which blocks them from having children. It's more that most families I know are content with having two children. It feels fine to them. But that's the families that do have children. 25% of men in my countr…

And there are the increasing infertility rates as well to hamper the efforts.

Personally, I would love to have a few kids but after many years of trying and all manner of treatments we have gotten nowhere at all. But that is just how if falls I guess.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#113
post #74

Everyone keeps talking "more babies. more immigration". what about "less old people" (this is a joke but I am curious if that has ever come up?)

Eventually that will be the case but it just takes decades of the demographic bubble to work its way through.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#114

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 idea that Japan is a uniquely "homogeneous culture" is honestly a modern construct anyway. Japanese culture and language has been enormously influenced by colonial and migrant presence in the country, from Chinese to Dutch to British to American, and a zillion others. Just look at the language! I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but I remember when taking Japanese language courses that something like 3…

I was going to say, Japans history is one that was very... combative. They fought amongst themselves heavily for a long time.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#115
post #81
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look back a few hundred years and you'll find that the country you grew up in, in Europe, was constantly in that situation. People moved a lot back then too. And the countries are today.. the countries. It'll be fine.

The last migration of equivalent magnitude was the Anglo-Saxons 1500 years ago... Most people did not move around much at all. An average person would be born and die in the same village, or the same region. A handful of people travelled a lot, generally merchants, sailors, and such, but they were a pretty tiny percentage of the population compared to the people engaged in subsistence agriculture.

It only looks like that because you're looking over a relatively short timeframe. Start looking over more than a generation and things will look different. I just have to check my father's ancestry research to see that - his notes includes a lot of extra information not directly related to my forefathers, and yes people moved. That a lot of people move in, historically, an instant, is something that doesn't happen always, but it has happened again and again over time. The net result is in any case that anyone country is, when you look back, always a product of its immigration. And it's still a country which you would attribute national culture to. The culture isn't frozen if you look over a large enough timeframe, and I for one am happy for that - my boring childhood town isn't that way anymore: boring.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#116
post #40

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.

Yep, there is a lot of evidence that says even nomadic tribes heavily intermingled with others because it was seen as a means of building resilience for all.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#117
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you have a way to secure rice production, please let us know. Or did you mean to abandon rice because it's too labor intensive? There's a reason for subsidies, just as there are reasons for agricultural support in my home country - without it there would be no agriculture. And, without going into details, that would be a disaster.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#118
post #51

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 would the solution to “our people aren’t having enough babies” be “we should import different people to have their babies here”? I'm not "... liberal", however there are two reasons. For one it has turned or to be very hard to convince people to "just have more babies". Second reason is that immigration workforce is available immediately, while an increase in birth rate will only help 20 years later. Even if yo…

It isn't just about getting it above 2.0, it is having those people in the work force. Even if you could magic up enough babies today, it would be about 20 years until they would be actively offsetting the issue. The is why demographic issues are so insidious. The problems that keep birth rates down today, end up amplifying these issues in the future further suppressing them. Eventually you hit equilibrium but it is a long way down until you get there.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#119

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.

This is one of those thing, yes that is a true statement but what do you do with that information? Would you be willing to make that call?

Looks like the trolley problem in action.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#120
post #39

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…

You are forgetting the natives who royally massively got screwed. Perfect example why they should have done everything possible to stop migration.
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