Japan's Population Decline

Japan’s population has been declining drastically since 1985 (UNICEF, 2015). As a result of this sharp and continuous decline, it’s economy has been weakened dramatically, and the lack of immigrants moving to Japan has done little to improve the situation. In the past, foreigners were very open to the idea of moving to Japan and starting a life there because Japan is illustrious for its successful and skilled people and jobs (Green, 2017). However, the Japanese lifestyle has proved to be significantly more difficult to grow accustomed to than previously imagined. Native Japanese people, have a set of customs they live by, and the Japanese government is very skeptical of foreigners entering their country and treating it as their own (Akashi, 2014).

Japan first started accepting immigrants in the early 20th century (Green, 2017), but it never truly accepted them. Japan has an aging population, and a majority of the population is not progressive, resorting to old-world thoughts. They ostracize immigrants from their society, and make it extremely difficult for them to find what they immigrated to Japan for, good jobs. The unhappiness coming from the Japanese immigrants is causing less and less people to move to Japan on an annual basis, dropping the population even further, because the population buffer that Japan had from its immigrants is now disappearing. Japan is now encouraging its elderly people to take the jobs that could be offered to immigrants, to keep Japan’s economy afloat, which they are very reluctant to do (Green, 2017). This crisis is vital at this time because if Japan cannot reform itself and accept the people it has, it’s economy could sink, causing millions of people to emigrate to different parts of the world, whose economies might not be able to support this rapid influx of population (Menju, 2017). The lack of understanding toward immigrants coming from the Japanese government is causing fewer people to move to Japan, and in turn, causing the economy to decline even further.

Japan’s population has been declining since the 1970s, each year having a sharper decline than the previous. Between 2010 and 2015, the population has declined by over 2,000 people, and is projected to decline at an even faster rate by the decade (UNICEF, 2013). As a result of this population decline, Japan’s economy is deteriorating Along with a declining population, Japan has an aging population. As of 2013, 35 percent of the Japanese were over the age of 60, and only 14 percent were between the ages of 20 and 35 (UNICEF, 2013). Furthermore, the population of immigrants in Japan has been decreasing at a constant rate, causing the crisis to deteriorate. As of 2013, the percent of immigrants in Japan was less than 7 (UNICEF, 2013). The aged people in Japan do not have the ability to do the tiring tasks that are required to save the economy, and by not encouraging immigrants to move to Japan, there are even less people present to do the tasks.

Not letting immigrants vote will preserve the notion of the post-war Japanese nation attached to the ideas of citizenship and state, while maintaining political exclusion of all immigrants (Kashiwazaki, 2006). From the late 1900s, voting rights for immigrants had not been an important factor to consider when writing the Japanese laws (Lee, 2008). However, starting the early 2000s, immigrants’ voting rights have become a major topic of discussion. In 1990, eleven Korean immigrants from Osaka filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for making them feel discriminated against. They believed that they had the right to vote, even if they were immigrants, and spurred up multiple long-lasting debates, causing the government to consider changing the law (Junishi, 2014). However, in 2000, the government chose not to, resorting to traditional Japanese belief of a homologous society being the only ones granted voting rights (Lee, 2008)

International human rights and the local level of immigration politics have contributed to deteriorating human, civil, and cultural rights for immigrants in Japan (Junishi, 2014). There is a multitude of people who chose to move to Japan for the opportunities they thought it provided. Upon arriving, however, they realized that Japan was not everything it was made out to be. Instead of being warmly accepted into their new home, immigrants are being ostracized by society. They are being denied their natural rights, from voting to even acquiring jobs (Kashiwazaki, 2006). Worthwhile jobs in Japan are mainly offered to people skilled people who are citizens of Japan, and the government is extremely wary of offering citizenship to immigrants (Menju, 2017). This is for the reason that the immigrants caused them to feel challenged in