
Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise - hhs
https://japantoday.com/category/national/Japan%27s-working-population-drops-further
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theprotocol
Can we stop pretending birth rate decline couldn't self-stabilize? I don't see
populations organically shrinking to 0 as a realistic scenario.

I for one am tired of extremely misguided and unjustified attempts at
engineering everything on the planet.

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beambot
How do you propose to sustainably support 7.5 Billion people on this "tiny"
planet without engineering?

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deogeo
Perhaps there is a middle ground between "engineering everything" and "without
engineering".

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veryworried
I see this as a good thing. We need less people in the world, it will be
better for the planet, and civilization will be more sustainable. Better to
have a highly automated more empty world than a hot crowded one with too many
mouths to feed and not enough food to go around.

~~~
systemBuilder
EXACTLY ^^. If population worldwide were to drop 90%, global warming and mass
extinctions would end. In the 1970s we all worried about world overpopulation.
ZPG - Zero Population Growth was desirable. Today that disaster is here! 90%
of the world's population is not changing anything about mankind's future they
are just hanging out ... we should focus on a smaller world by population and
more productivity for the future of humanity...

I'll tell you why you see these alarmist articles! Greedy business interests!
They are programming our minds to think this is a crisis! To these misers it
is a crisis because 1% of business growth every year in places like the USA
comes from business sitting on its ass - just from population growth!

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apocalypstyx
I honestly cannot tell if Poe's law is applicable here or not.

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systemBuilder
Your response is testament to how thoroughly your thoughts are programmed to
serve the needs of others...

To clarify, fully 1% of GDP growth which is 16% of real (inflation adjusted)
business growth, is from population growth. This is why our business-owned
media wants us to think this is a crisis ...

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seunosewa
If automation is the future, isn’t a decline in the working population a good
thing? The robots can just take over the vacant jobs. What am I missing?

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mertd
A nugget of cycling wisdom says when you get fitter, cycling doesn't become
any easier, you just go faster.

Similarly with automation, we are just ending up with more efficient means of
production but not less work overall.

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wallace_f
>but not less work overall

I think we do have less work overall and need to accept the liberation.

A lot of jobs have popped up through things like regulatory capture or
monopolistic competition(1) which have debatable benefit to society.

1-[https://www.athenahealth.com/insight/expert-forum-rise-
and-r...](https://www.athenahealth.com/insight/expert-forum-rise-and-rise-
healthcare-administrator)

~~~
deogeo
> A lot of jobs have popped up through things like regulatory capture or
> monopolistic competition(1) which have debatable benefit to society.

A more concise term is 'parasites'.

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AngryData
As a bit of a side tract, this is happening to all modernized nations, only
Japan is one of the few modern countries that isn't allowing enough legal
immigrants to make up for the decline. The US also has a negative native
population growth, but because the doom and disaster a negative growth rate
would cause upon our current economic models we allow shit tons of legal
immigration to maintain growth.

~~~
irq11
Japan just passed a radical (for Japan) change to their immigration rules, to
allow in more foreign workers in a number of low-skill categories. It’s also
comparatively easy for skilled workers to get visas. (The bigger problem is
making Japanese companies treat these workers as equals...but they’re coming
around.)

Now, contrast to the current reactionary government of the United States, and
their attitude toward immigration. The two countries are clearly moving in
opposite directions.

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matvore
Japan doesn't really need complex or quota-based immigration laws because
foreigners are not super happy to live there forever once they've tried it.
More so than legal barriers, there are cultural ones. And there are borders in
our minds just as much as on maps (e.g. preconceptions that we're stubborn to
let go of).

The US is different, of course. People like it here once they've arrived. I
can't say why, nor do I buy the stereotype that US culture is more open or
individualistic. But the US arguable needs laws quota-based and micro-managey,
since they are managing a huge amount of people from more diverse backgrounds.
Japan is managing fewer potential immigrants and guests, and most of their
immigrants are geographically close to Japan.

Despite the immigration laws being easier to grok and less authoritarian on
paper, Japan is pretty strict in its enforcement of those laws. Put all I've
said together and I don't know if one country is more reactionary than the
other, but I think both countries are moving toward a more balanced, less
eccentric immigration system at the moment.

(why you should listen to me: I'm an American and lived in Japan for four
years and had to go through the process of getting my wife a spouse visa 2
years into my stay. I dealt with immigration a few times. I went to many
different cities and vacations and such, and talked to people that don't speak
English and don't have a passport, so I have a representative sample set.)

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irq11
_”Japan doesn 't really need complex or quota-based immigration laws because
foreigners are not super happy to live there forever once they've tried it.”_

You’re just making things up now. People are clamoring to get into Japan. It’s
one of the safest countries on earth, with one of the highest standards of
living. Not to mention inexpensive health care and a surplus of good jobs. I
lived there too, and personally saw the people trying to emigrate, from all
over the world. And arguing that it _used_ to be different misses the point:
they’re becoming more open, and we’re closing off. It’s an indisputable fact.

 _”The US is different, of course. People like it here once they 've arrived.
I can't say why, nor do I buy the stereotype that US culture is more open or
individualistic.”_

If you think US culture is any less difficult to adapt to for an immigrant,
you’re incredibly naive. It’s always hard. There’s nothing special about the
US, except that we’ve been traditionally willing to accept immigrants. That,
itself, is changing, and reactionary douchebags are making it a damned sight
more scary and less welcoming by trying to protect the “different” way of life
from the scary, scary foreigners.

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ve55
It would be nice to see more in-depth root cause analyses of the fertility
issues that many nations like Japan are facing. It's obvious there are a lot
of causal factors of various weights, but it's difficult to see which ones
have the greatest effect as well as which ones we would be able to improve the
easiest. Too often all of these issues seem to just be hand-waved as
"something that just happens", with few groups actually working to apply the
scientific method in order to improve the situation.

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Nasrudith
I think some of it is economics - having children is more K-strategy, more
expenses and attention called for - and people don't need children for social
security. Compare to say third world farm families where the marginal cost of
children is low and there are more gains.

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paulorlando
This is also an example where the larger story is about emptying out the rural
areas while the cities grow. Most of Japan's large cities have increased in
population (or are flat) over the past 20 years. So, yes a smaller "working
age" population but one that is centered around white-collar rather than
agricultural work.

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max76
There is no stabilization of the Japanese ethnic population in sight. With
these trends I wonder how the island will change culturally in 100 or 200
years. I suspect we'll see them continue to open more and more to the west.

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toomuchtodo
The rest of the West isn’t far behind. Only in Africa and a country or two in
the Middle East is the birth rate above replacement rate.

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beaner
Just a cursory Google search shows that countries like Mexico and the
Philippines are way above the replacement rate as well so I don't think your
comment is accurate.

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toomuchtodo
Admittedly my comment was a result of a quick glance at the ourworldindata.org
fertility map on a mobile device. I may have missed a country or two depending
on the shading of the country.

[https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-
rate](https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate)

