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Countries with vast populations-like India and China-can afford to lose large numbers of their people to other countries as migrants or expats, depending on your preferred nomenclature. Countries with small and shrinking populations can not be so blithe.
In Japan, with a population of 127 million shrinking at an average rate of 1,000 people a day, people are pretty worried about it, in fact. In a survey of 1,016 Japanese people being interviewed between May 24th and June 19th, Pew Research Center found that nearly 60% of people surveyed called "Japanese nationals leaving to work overseas" in "moderately / very big problem," up from 39% in 2002. About 1.3 million Japanese are living abroad, according to the government.
Spring 2018 Global Attitudes Survey. Q51. Pew Research Center
While immigration is growing faster than emigration, the net increase from it has been so small and unable to offset the shrinking. And given Japan's desire to preserve its culture and language, the country would be more likely to keep the Japanese people it, rather than replace them with foreigners-it's slowly bending on that front too.
When it was about to immigrate to the country, it was about 23% wanted to stay, so it's unclear how the view has changed). Still, given that immigration has visibly increased in Japan in recent years, voting for the status quo that many Japanese are OK with the increases in immigration that are taking place. Only 13% wanted immigration to go down. Meanwhile 59% said that immigrants are making their work better and better, while they say they are a burden on society.
Of the 2.2 million foreigners living in Japan, some 1.3 million are workers (paywall) as of 2017, a 17% increase from the previous year. Shinzo Abe's cabinet is passed by the end of the year. Government sources say as many as 40,000 workers could enter the first year, and half a million by 2025.
A Kyodo poll found 51% of Japanese supported the new work-visa law-probably because the administration does not really talk about it. And in fact, the new work visas for blue-collar workers would not allow people to bring up their families. A separate skilled worker would be allowed to be permanent residents. Both groups have to learn Japanese. A Nikkei survey (paywall) also showed support for the future.
Tokyo Olympics in 2020. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb.
Reuters / Issei Kato
