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IMMIGRATION:
The Nation’s low birth rate and a disdain for outsiders could
jeopardize living standards.
By HOWARD FRENCH
The New York Times
TOKYO—With
its population shrinking faster than any other nation’s, government
experts, demographers and economists say, the only way for Japan to
maintain its lofty living standards is to quickly begin accepting
immigrants in far greater numbers and to abandon the age-old comfort of
its near-uniform ethnicity.
But despite Japans
coming demographic crisis, which will affect everything from financing
pensions for the world’s oldest population to supplying workers to
crucial manufacturing industries, any discussion of remedies quickly
collides with w deep-seated resistance to
accepting outsiders.
The population is
projected to decline 17 percent by 2050, from 127 million to 105
million, according to U.N. estimates To maintain a steady population, on
average, Japanese women would have to give birth to 2.08 children., But
in 1998, the last year for
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which such
information is available, the childbearing average stood at 1.38 per
woman. What is worse, the rapid aging of Japan’s people will further
accelerate the population decline as there will be fewer women of
childbearing age.
Already, industries
such as elderly care, hospital work and the lowest-paying farming and
manufacturing jobs are struggling to find enough workers to keep up with
demand.
But still, as many
as 80 percent of the respondents in a recent national poll said they
oppose allowing any more immigrants into the country.
Most invoke
Japan’s historically high unemployment rate in opposing more
immigrants. But, experts say there is far more involved—above all, a
tradition of insularity that openly regards most foreigners,
particularly Asians, with disdain.
Japan was, in fact, an officially closed country
between 1639 and 1854, with no immigration or foreign travel allowed, on
penalty of death. Since then, the country has scarcely opened. The
largest influx of foreigners was the arrival of |
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thousands of
Koreans brought to Japan to work or fight on its behalf during Japan’s
35-year annexation of Korea early this century. And even after several
generations here, these Koreans have never been truly accepted .
In Japan, lock companies appeal to racial fear in advertisements
that bluntly link crime to foreigners. Most real estate companies openly
refuse to take foreign clients. Banks often refuse to lend to
foreigners. And many places of entertainment, from pachinko parlors to
bars to hot baths, maintain a Japanese only policy.
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