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Why Japan Is Opening Up To Mass Immigration For The First Time in History
For decades, Japan’s borders were virtually closed to immigrants. As a proud island nation with a shrinking population, xenophobic attitudes reigned supreme. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Japan currently faces a demographic crisis unlike anything the modern world has seen before. Its total population has plummeted from a peak of 128 million in 2008 to just 122 million today. The fertile soil that gave rise to economic miracles like the post-war boom is drying up at an alarming rate. By 2050, projections show Japan will be short a staggering 19 million working-age people — over 15% of its current workforce.
An aging population combined with chronically low birth rates equals severe labor shortages, unsustainable pension burdens, and long-term economic stagnation or decline. For the first time since the Meiji Era ushered in its re-opening, Japan has been forced to turn to mass immigration as a potential solution to this existential crisis.
Previously condemned as an insidious threat to Japanese culture and identity, foreign workers from overseas are now being actively recruited and welcomed with open arms across the island archipelago. Even Prime Minister Fumio Kishida himself has declared that new arrivals from abroad “strengthen Japan through their…
