Japan’s demographic problems are chronic, with a birth rate that continues to plunge over the years. But the country of the rising sun refuses to halt the demographic decline by opening the doors wide to immigration, as Europe does but without officially accepting it, due to the extreme right. An event in Japan, discreet but all the same: According to official data published yesterday Wednesday, July 24, the country recorded a record increase in foreign nationals…
As of January 1, 2024, the country had 3.32 million foreign residents, according to figures revealed on July 25. This is an increase of 11% over one year and an absolute record since the Ministry of Internal Affairs began studying this trend in 2013. Foreign residents now represent around 2.7% of the Japanese population, which accounts for a total of 124.9 million inhabitants.
The Japanese press attributes this rise in the foreign population to the end of drastic border restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. So foreign students and workers are returning to the country. In 2018 the government loosened the screw on immigration policy to facilitate the installation of foreign workers. The country had no other choice in the face of a labor shortage. In 2019 the authorities loosened even more with two new visas to welcome migrants.
The Japanese, as we know, have a real cultural blockage at this level: mixing terrifies them. At most, they make small openings for migrants in the neighborhood. This will not be enough to ensure generational renewal. With a historically low birth rate, Japan has the second oldest population in the world, behind Monaco. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has drawn up plans to boost births and has made it clear that the country is “on the verge of being unable to continue functioning as a society.”
It is problematic enough to cause a national upheaval but it is very timid, especially when it comes to considering the mixing of the population to save it from certain disappearance in the long term. The number of Japanese citizens living in Japan was 121.6 million as of January 1, according to the data, a decline of 861,237 people in 2023, the 15th annual decline in a row and the largest on record. The situation is more than serious.
