Do you think Japan's declining birth rate will cause it to increase immigration?

[RealJames]

Originally Posted by Umihito

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I learned that South Korea has a 'family day' in which workers are allowed to go home early on a day of the week to get busy, to try and encourage them to have children to increase their population.

Does Japan have anything like this, or does it plan to?

Wednesday is supposed to be no overtime day but public workers seem to actually get that more.
and public holidays fall on Mondays often

and delivery health keeps people busy lol

[japan1234567]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

Another problem is that Japan is quite a xenophobic country, and has far fewer foreigners in it's workforce than any other developed country. Even when Japan was allowing Brazilians to come to work in the auto factories, special preference was given to Brazilians with Japanese ancestry. The Japanese are a polite people, but this politeness masks a long-standing fear/dislike of foreigners. As the labor market continues to shrink, Japan will absolutely not import any foreign laborers into the country. In fact, those Brazilan auto workers who came during he boom times are being encouraged to leave. Since they were not Japanese, or fully Japanese, they were the first ones to lose their jobs when production slowed down. Rather than pay long-term unrpemployment benefits, the government prefers simply to send them back to Brazil.

I agree with you about xenophobic Japan. It's called "jus sanguinis" 100% blood "only Japanese blood". It's the opposite of "jus soli" rule like the USA and Canada do have. It means you belong there where you are born. Xenophobia ist an international phenomenon and in every country there are people like this.

My Japanese friends already complained about how criminal Japanese Brazilian are because some of them after killing Japanese they went back to Brazil and disappear. They complained too about people from the Philippines who work in Tokyo and send money they earned at home. They told me they do worry about the fast growing number of Chinese tourists coming to Japan.

Xenophobic western people don't speak to everybody about xenophobia. It's why I was never having a good feeling when Japanese friends spoke about some foreigner's races which they dismiss. There is a big anxiety and concern toward foreigners. A lot are obsessed to know the truth behind the foreigner coming to Japan. Business traveler are well seen but tourists are just tolerated. The Japanese tourism minister said local people musst change their minds and attitude otherwise there will be no increase in tourist's number.

I'm really glad to spend only a few weeks in a year there. I'm wondering how foreign people - living there or those who are married to Japanese - could constantly bear this high pressure coming from everywhere there. Even in some bars or restaurants in some streets foreigner are not welcome because the business owners are afraid that Japanese customers never come back.

According to history first Europeans (visit Dejima in Nagasaki to see how they lived) who came to Japan tried to spread the Christianity. The Tokugawa dynasty closed after the Japanese borders for about 250 years till around 1854. So, lot of Japanese still mistrust the world. But today's globalization oblige to keep the borders open otherwise it won't be possible to sell Toyota cars and so on abroad...

My Japanese friends in Europe acknowledge the xenophobia in Japan, but they said it's coming from this strong desire to survive.