Beneficial in what sense? Ecological? It will absolutely wreck their economy in the absence of immigrants. Labor shortages will happen long term, entitlements for the aging population will be difficult to address. Investment troubles will be on the horizon with the lack of assumed growth.
Immigration isn't meant to be a solution to population decline but to provide labor and keep the economy growing as the population ages. Loosening immigration restrictions, even if it's on temporary skilled laborers, is a whole lot easier than re-aligning your entire society to redress an aging population.
Yes, I am aware it's an economic solution. That is what I believe it should be used for, a temporary measure to patch up the economy until the population issue is addressed or the economy is reformed. I am primarily arguing against those who see immigration as the solution to the population decline.
Send me there, i'll help solve the problem
I assume you are talking about mediocrespine because he is the only one disagreeing with the conventional wisdom but he never explicitly said that immigration is a solution to population decline, just that developed nations need immigrants and that immigrants can cover the labor shortages that come from an aging, declining population. Both things that are absolutely true.
I feel like too many people look at Japan and the topic of immigration with a Western bias against migration and try to apply it to that country without really understanding the consequences of what they are saying. Japan can't wait 50 years for vague solutions like "until the populationn issue is addressed" or "reform the economy". I don't even know what the latter means.
It's already happening to Western countries, but immigration hides it. Italy and Spain have lower birth rates than Japan and pretty much the entire first world is below replacement rate.
What's the point of an environment if there's no one around to enjoy it?
I think it's funny that on a forum widely held to be a far-left echo chamber can have a post that is by any measure absolutely correct;
Get more disagrees than agrees by a 12:1 ratio. There are very, very few developed nations that don't have at least 5% of it's population being immigrants and less than a dozen that have less than 10%.
People are saying that relying on immigrants is unsustainable. It's not a solution, it's a patch at best. No one is saying we shouldn't have any migrants, like you're unsubtly implying, but that acting as though importing new people is a magic bullet for population decline is fucking stupid.
I just find it weird how much leeway we give Japan, who in every sense of the word outside of their rapid tech growth, could be easily compared to 1970s America. Complete with Women having to choose between their career or having kids, which backfires when women are needed in the workforce.
Relying on immigrants is not only sustainable, it has a high correlation to being competitive in the global economy. His statement, taken on it's own and without having context applied to it unfairly, is absolutely, emphatically correct.
And I don't think the word is import, I believe the word is attract, and if it's so stupid then you should take it up with the Japanese government because apparently they think it's a good idea.
Also someone on the last page said they shouldn't have any immigrants, you rated it agree as a matter of fact. PortrugalOtaku did too which is why I want some illumination as to what he sees as ideal immigration policy.
The United States got to its position due to mass immigration, that's why its so important. Its critical that you have a healthy, intergrating and mingling immigration base because they bring in not only fresh blood, but new perspectives and ideas. Not all ideas are good, but to say the Immigration is a 'patch' fix is really only helping one particular group, Nationalists. That's a group that Japan sorely needs to get rid of.
It just seems sort of weasely to me. No one wants to say that Japan doesn't need migrants, but at the same time no one wants to say Japan needs migrants. So we have our cake and eat it to by calling it "temporary", a time frame that all of zero posters in this thread have actually explained.
Literally no one on the last page said they shouldn't have any immigrants. WTF are you talking about?
Immigration isn't a bad thing, but if the immigrants take on the same cultural norms as the natives (which the almost always do to some degree) then they'll stop having kids too. The problem is that there are greater social issues causing the decline in birth-rate in the first place. You need immigration AND the population which is already there having kids, not just one.
Only immigration is a patch fix. America didn't become a superpower solely on the backs of immigration and it did it in an entirely different position to modern day Japan. The nationalists of Japan are also the ones pushing the 'work 168 hours a week or you're a failure' attitude in Japan that's causing people to not have relationships.
The ideas thing is absolutely correct. If Japan had a large enough integration of people who aren't willingto put up with the shit they have to go through it would really help the country, but most immigrants are from poorer countries and are willing to work their asses off for a relative pittance, so that wouldn't help Japans workaholism.
Just to be a devils advocate here, what about chefs?
Many work 16 hour days and that’s just how it always has been. It’s hard for a chef to not work those kind of hours I’ve been told, and also read in numerous books.
or film and television? I worked in that world, and long days were just a requirement of the job, there wasn’t and isn’t really a way around that time requirement, and the profitability isn’t there for the crew if you just hire more people on.
Im all for work life balance but I’ve been in a lot of jobs and a lot of levels in a lot of different fields and I’m not sure how you can just cut hours and get the job done in some fields.
My bad, you're right. It was page 1.
If you "need" immigration then why disagree with someone who said that developed nations need migrants?
Nobody said immigrants did it solely, just that they are important.
Gonna be honest. I'm sick with something and only read the first sentence before clicking agree.
Because he said immigration is the solution to Japan's declining birth-rate. It's not a solution because the factors which are causing the declining birth rate aren't being addressed.
I was saying that pointing to America's development, as it conquered its way across North America, as a reference to Japan's current problems is ridiculous. America didn't become as big as it is because of immigration, it did it by conquest. Immigration helped, absolutely, but it wasn't the driving factor. Especially considering how fucking racist America as an entity has been historically.
Fair enough, I've done the same thing, I'm just looking for clarification.
If he said that thats one thing but that wasn't the post I was defending, it was the post I quoted, which we have already concluded you agree with.
Fair enough, I missed that. It's hard to say either way because of how
I think it's just easier to cross-reference the list of countries by development with a list of countries with migrants as a % of population, whereupon you will find a high correlation between more developed nations and migrant workers, whether it be 5% of the population, 10%, or 20%. Outside of countries like Russia and China, which were fortunate enough to have formed around massive amounts of natural resources (and the latter being arguably a developing nation despite it's GDP) there are less than 10 developed nations with migrant populations below 10%.
Read my other posts.
Immigration causes a temporary boost to population because most immigrants come from developing countries. The children of these migrants do no adopt their parents procreating habits because they don't live in a society where having children is encouraged. So you need more immigrants.
This requires that poor/developing countries exist, and that they exist in a perpetual state of mass emigration. Essentially developing countries must exist in a state of never-ending brain drain as the people who will be accepted into foreign countries leave for a better life. Also, should those developing countries ever become developed countries they will produce fewer migrants as their populations stabilise and eventually enter a state of decline. Either you're accepting that some countries will just be impoverished indefinitely or you're relying on a system which has a finite timeline.
Japan does need immigrants, but to open the borders to new people and then dust off your hands and say "problem solved" is incredibly short sighted or malicious. This issue also extends to much of the wider world too. America needs immigrants, Europe needs immigrants, Canada needs immigrants, Australia needs immigrants, Mars needs moms, even China and Russia need immigrants (though they'd never admit it). There's not an infinite supply of immigrants.
My point is that Japan, and the developed world as a whole, needs to solve the many complex issues which cause the birth-rate to be lower than the death-rate. Migration should be common, as it is a great way to spread ideas and empathy for others, but as a system for population stability it's either cruel by necessity or incredibly short sighted.
Migration is good, the world would be a better place if more countries were open to migration in general, but all countries have deep seated social issues which need to be addressed and brushing them off with "But we can just bring in more people" will keep things worse for everybody. That's why I said earlier that immigration isn't a magic bullet.
Well immigration had a huge affect, of course. More people = more productive units. A new country as USA needed migrants to move in to build up the population as it started from 0. More people can conquer more lands.
OF course, Japan is not a new country, what it needs is not migration but a fix to the UNDERLYING PROBLEMS. WHY would you EVER put a plaster over a wound and not try to treat the infection. Japan's society is really unhealthy and sick at the moment, under no circumstances is it normal that a biological population like humans is not reproducing in numbers enough to replace them.
I'll just respond to this point because I don't necessarily disagree with the rest but the problems developing countries have are their own problems. I don't really believe in limiting the movement of people who want to leave their country for a better life elsewhere, particularly if that "elsewhere" has a particular need for their sort of labor, skilled or otherwise. It should also be stressed that, as pointed out earlier, most of Japans migrant workers come from other Asian countries which are obviously not at parity with Japan in terms of development, but aren't exactly impoverished either.
I literally said migration is good, but sure just ignore that.
I didn't ignore it, I was just making the comment that other countries concerns shouldn't be relevant to Japan's immigration policy. Japan's immigration policy should be crafted solely around what is good for Japan.
For one, China doesn't have 5+ children. Most families have either one child or rarely have two. Secondly, I don't blame families in Africa or India for having a shitload of kids. Turns out living in absolute poverty means your carbon footprint is only several hundred times less than a single person from the developed world. They use less electricity (if at all), buy less, use less healthcare, often are subsistence farmers, and generally don't not even come close to the first world. When you live in a poor country, you might not always have access to contraception, and having more children is advantageous because it's free labor around the store or on the farm. You can not point the finger at these countries and go "It's okay for me to continue living like I am, if only all these Africans will stop fucking". You may not have particularly meant that, but it's what your post implied.
Japan needs to get over it's god complex amd extreme xenophobia and just wtart letting immigration actually work. Alongside adopting a more socialized labor system. People really need to stop propping up Japan's shitty behavior and how ass backwards some of their policies are because "MUH CULTURE" when that exact behavior is killing them.
Remember, Japan still refuses to acknowledge the Rape of Nanking.
Ehh, while true, they make up for their footprint by burning anything and everything they can get and the regions that are especially impacted are places in the Savannah which don't have much in the way of a consistent and sustainable bio-fuel source.
China did curb their birthrates. They also invested heavily into rural education creating a huge population that can afford healthcare and other everyday modern needs.
It’s not even the problem here at all so why suggest it is
They don't need immigration, they need to sort out their social issues and make it preferable for people to start a fsmily. People work too much and it's not affordable, especially with women in the workforce, long hours. Europe and the west is the same. We don't need immigration to solve birth shortages, we need to support stable families.
A huge part of the problem is indeed the lack of opportunities to start a family, but that does not mean immigration cannot solve short term economic issues until the demographics are fixed.
I am pretty sure that the moment their demographics stabilize, they will shut their doors to migration and go back to paying people to leave.
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