The Very Final Essay

Immigrants: Key to Solve Falling Population Problems in Japan

On October 31st, 2011, the World’s population reached 7 billion (The world.). On the other hand, according to National Institute of Population and Social Research, declining number of children and increase in aging population will be developed. As a result, in 2100 Japanese population would be about 49,430,000. Compared with that of 2006, about 127,740,000, it is less than half. (Japan National Institute of population and Social Security Research) For example, in Japan, "There is one village where a baby was not born for one year among towns and villages all over the country ( Seihu. )". This is a case of Besshiyama-mura in 2002. In response to these situations, the government announced that a rapid advance of a decrease in the birthrate has undermined the sustainability of society and economy fundamentally (Seihu Shiryou tou Hukyu Tyousakai.).

To keep up with this large-scale change of social structure Japanese government need to shift paradigm from the populous society toward the less populous society. Immigrants are keys to solve falling population problems. According to the 1997 Recommendations of the United Nations, definition of an immigrant is any person who changes his or her country of usual residence (Recommendation on statistics 1998). This definition is applicable to this essay. According to National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (NIPSSR) there are 2,134,151 immigrants in current Japan. Thirty two percent of them are from China, twenty six percent from Korea, eleven percent from Brazil, ten percent from the Philippines, three percent from Peru, two percent from the U.S. and the others are sixteen percent (National Institute of population and Social Security Research.). Their jobs are very strongly related with their education level. For example, the American immigrants have tendency to be scholars and some immigrants for example the Philippines tend to come to Japan to study and to keep their family in their mother country (NIPSSR.). In other words, nationality is likely to have strong relationship with jobs. Even if the Japanese government accepts immigrants, a social and economic gap would produce among them. However, to solve the population problems Japan should take in large number of immigrants in future because they are both labor and consumer, and they can have a positive influence on Japanese economics. However, the Japanese government should prepare for accepting immigrants more before accepting large number of immigrants.

I.                   The Influence of Falling Population on the Society

Japanese government should take active action to prevent falling population because it would trigger many kinds of serious problems. National Institute of Population and Social Research states that Japan’s population would be nearly ninety million in 2050 according to medium estimate assumed a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.26. High estimate assumed TFR of 1.5 also indicates that Japanese population would decrease (National Institute of Population and Social Research 2006). It is almost inevitable to decline Japanese’s population during 21^st century. Declining economic power is one of the most serious problems. According to professor Atoh, who is a specialist of population problems, there are five main reasons why falling population has disadvantage to economic growth: 1. Decline of consumption and investment demand by decrease in population, 2. Reduction in the work force of productive population accompanying with that the fall of labor productivity and mobility, 3. Aging of the work force by age structure change of productive population, 4. Decreasing the savings rate by aging society and reducing capital savings, 5. Deterrent effect by aging society of the national burden rate of growth, which includes taxes and social insurance (Atoh.). To sum up these, falling population have disadvantageous influence on the economy because of briefly two reasons, one is falling population means falling the number of working people and another is falling population means falling the number of consumers. Japanese government should overcome the falling population problems by supplementing the number of workers and the consumers, and one key way is to protect them by laws.

II.                Benefits of taking in more immigrants

Taking immigrants could have three main positive influences on the Japanese economy; as labors and consumers and contribution of new culture.

 First of all, immigrants can supplement the population and labor force. Falling population relatively means a decrease in labor force. Labor shortages are particularly severe in agriculture. According to one research, ten thousand workers who engage in agriculture are decreasing per one year in Japan. Furthermore, their average age is about sixty six now (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.). It is clear that agriculture field needs new workers immediately. However, young Japanese are unwilling to engage in jobs such as agriculture because there are mostly two reasons: first, it is said hard, dirty and dangerous work: second, young Japanese are highly educated and that is why they want to be a white-collar. Furthermore, Japan faces declining the number of children and the young. In another words Japan need to welcome non-Japanese workers into the society. It is also said that Japanese society need ten million immigrants overt fifty years to stop decreasing and to keep developing economic growth. Immigrants can stem the decrease of population or slow it down because they can supplement the number of the workers.

Second, immigrants can be consumers. The rise of the number of the consumers simply results in the rise of consumption. If consumption would rise, demand would also rise. If demand would expand, corporations would try to expand their production because they determine the amount of production examining the amount of demand. To expand their production and get higher corporate-earnings they should employ many workers. For example Australia, its government has the department of immigration and citizenship. It has a policy to accept positively many immigrants, such as an engineer, a lawyer, an accountant, a chef, and a beautician (Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship.).

Fg. 2. The Cycle of Consumption Rise

Third, immigrants can bring more opportunities for Japanese citizen to contact with other cultures. Some people who believe multiculturalism try to make a place where multi-culture can exist. For example, in San Francisco, the U.S., which is known as a place where many immigrants live, there is a unique cooking school which is called “Culture Kitchen SF”. Teachers are immigrant women who came from Mexico, India, France and so on (Greenz.). They believe that because food reflects the background of culture, it would be a clue to understand inestimable value of different cultures. In fact it is important to know different culture because without knowing the gap between me and not-me human beings cannot recognize what I am and who I am. Needless to say direct communication with people who have their own cultures, in other words face to face communication, can give human much more meaningful, significant and essential part of recognition than indirect communication such as knowledge from text books. For example, according to a research by the two graduate students of Keio University, the classes for a multi-cultural understanding are carried out at the shonandai elementary school at Fujisawa, Kanagawa prefecture. In order to make these lessons better, they studied the lessons (Ishiji). Such an attempt is seen at both public and private elementary schools all over Japan.

III.             Disadvantage of Taking Immigrants

On the other hand, immigrants cannot solve all problems concerning the falling population. On the contrary, they might sometimes cause bigger problems. For instance, on October 2010, Merkel, who was a German prime minister, said German multicultural society has completely failed (BBC.)”. There are a lot of Turkish immigrant workers there. There has been friction between them and “so-called German” Why and how did the friction occur? Since it is not the main theme of this essay to describe an immigration problem of Germany, it states briefly. There are two reasons: one is cultural friction and another is economic and social gaps. The immigrants, who are mainly consisted of Turks in Germany, are not able to be reconciled with the German society because it is since the cultural differences including the barrier of language were stiff. On the other hand, the so-called Garman also are not able to harmonize with the immigrants because of their high unemployment rate. German case indicates that a society has a limited capacity to accept the others such as people who are not enculturated to the society.

IV.             How to Solve Problems Concerning on Immigrants

It is too early to conclude about immigrant workers in Japan, though German Prime Minister Merkel said that multiculturalism has completely failed there. Two points to say. First, the concept of “multiculturalism” seems to have an assumption of diversity of cultures in the world. Simply, multi- means “more than one” and “multiculturalism” means “the practice of giving importance to all cultures in a society (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionaly). It is completely true that there are many kinds of cultures in the earth. However, if the assumption would make some problems, our species should change the way of thinking from. Accepting a group with the common culture is accompanied by big change. However, accepting an individual with the different background from oneself might have fewer shocks than accepting a group. Second, in the case of German, immigrants exceeded the capacity to take in immigrants which the German society has. Japanese government should make department of immigration to control the number of immigrants and to protect immigrants from “the Japanese” and vice versa.  To make new department, Japan should learn from countries which already have the department of immigration such as Australia and Canada. Before accepting immigration Japan should make the law which protects immigrants, because what is essential is government can protect the right of people who live in Japan, which is not only the so-called Japanese but also immigrants.

V.                Conclusion

It is impossible to take in immigrants into Japan immediately because as Max Frisch said “We called for guest workers, and human beings came.”(Atoh 2007). They are people before workers. It indicates to welcome them to Japan that Japanese government is responsible for their happiness because they are inhabitants in Japan. Before accepting them, Japanese should have prospect of accepting immigrants and should make a society where women can work with confidence.

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