Yahoo! Japan netizens are known for their xenophobic, conservative views. Therefore, when they clocked this article, about cabinet findings that Japan could maintain its population at 100,000,000 people if there was consistent immigration, they were pretty unsettled.
Many netizens cited “public order” [chian], or the peaceful nature of Japanese society, as being the first things that would be sacrificed when foreigners started inundating Japanese shores.
While Japan can certainly be a difficult place for foreigners to live, the government realises it has bigger problems at hand. With the birthrate continuing to fall and the population aging rapidly, Japan could face severe economic problems in the coming decades if a solution to the problem is not sought.
From Yahoo! Japan:
Cabinet Population Estimate: If Japan Takes In 200,000 Immigrants Per Year Population Of 100,000,000 Can Be Maintained
On February 24, the cabinet announced regarding Japan’s future population estimates that preliminary calculations suggest that Japan could maintain a population of over 100,000,000 people assuming that the birthrate recovers and Japan accepts immigrants.
The cabinet made its calculations by separating the outcomes “birth rate recovers” from “current state of birthrate”. In the case that the birth rate recovers, then is is assumed that the total fertility rate (TFR; an estimate of how many children each woman will give birth to in her lifetime) will reach 2.07 by 2030 if Japan also accepts 200,000 immigrants per year from 2015. According to this calculation, by 2060 there will be 109,890,000 people, and by 2110 this will reach 114,040,000.
With the current birthrate, if Japan does not accept immigrants, then it is estimated by 2060, the population will fall to 86,740,000, and by 2110, this will decrease to 42,860,000.
Comments from Yahoo! Japan:
[Selection of most upvoted comments]
new*****:
Immigration as a measure against Japan’s decreasing birthrate is nothing other than an inane plan.
ftre:
This is just the epitome of stupidity!
Is Japan going to quit being Japan?
200,000 foreigners every year?
This is a massive problem, makes the issue of giving foreigners the right to participate in politics seem like no problem at all.
There’ll be a foreign country in each region of Japan.
太郎:
Young people, learn lots and have lots of children.
The government too, shouldn’t be saying “The population is falling, it’s going down”, but they should be putting effort into guaranteeing employment and lifestyles for young people so that they can be independent, have families, and bring up children.
If we take in immigrants, it will be directly linked to the end of Japan.
Let’s really throw ourselves into year 2674 of the Imperial Era [2014].
kingjapan:
And what’s happened to the US and Canada, who’ve taken in immigrants? Don’t tell me the person responsible for this calculation doesn’t even know?
M*A*S*A*****K******A:
I think it’s awful that they’re simply going to accept immigrants.
It would be the worst if we got immigrants from our neighbouring countries.
cba*****:
If we’re prepared to take in immigrants that we should just quietly accept a falling birthrate and aging society.
nrc*****:
It’s just too simplistic to adopt immigration as a policy to increase the population. If we accept immigration, then on top of the problem with the falling population, problems with public order and discrimination will be unavoidable.
Do your bloody job! Are you stupid?
jet*****:
This is just the muddlebrained thoughts of a government agency who think that if it works mathematically then problem solved. If we take in immigrants then all that’ll happen is that public order will get worse (>_<)
茫漠:
I have my doubts as to whether foreigners would really fill a gap in labour.
As a tourist spot, Japan has a rich history and abundant nature,
it’s elegant, clean, and probably a great country to visit,
but for a foreigner it ain’t an easy country to work in.
Common understanding between Japanese citizens is just too strong.
“You, even if it’s written in the contract, you say ‘this’ and you mean ‘this'” (Wonder why I wrote that in Nagoya dialect..)
Could they really work in a country like that?
They’ve used the EPA to call in Indonesian nurses,
but they never really stay no matter how many years pass.
When they finally pass the exams, they just end up going back to their own country.
nek*****:
Immigration sounds fine, but the only kind of people we’ll get over here are the ones who are no good and have no livelihood in their own country.
Look at the UK.
Any community they had was destroyed years ago.
And immigration to Japan would come from China and Korea, which would be completely awful.
This is nothing but a completely inane policy.
桐城山:
Maintain the population by taking in immigrants. Hmm.
They just want to exploit Japan.
And all that’ll happen is that people from an unnamed mainland and peninsula will flood over here.
hid*****:
They can’t sacrifice public order just to maintain a population of 100,000,000.
It’s not too late — if the government halves taxes then they can easily increase the number of children. It’s not that people don’t want to have children, is it? It’s just that they don’t have them because they have no money.
mug*****:
I’m against taking in immigrants!!
kad*****:
A ridiculous policy that they definitely shouldn’t carry out.
tak*****:
I wonder if they researched previous examples properly where the West have taken in immigrants?
I don’t think that a decreasing population is necessarily all that bad anyway…
ftre:
This is bad.
This ain’t Japan anymore; the final whistle is sounding.
