Abstract:
Japan currently faces a demographic crisis resulting from declines in fertility rates and
rapid expansion of Japan’s elderly population. Public pensions will come under immense
strain as shrinking numbers of working age people are forced to support ever more retirees.
At the same time, declines in fertility and falling population figures threaten Japan’s future
economic growth and vitality.
This thesis investigates the relationship between the demographic crisis and Japan’s
strict immigration policies. Policymakers continue to refuse to allow migration to Japan in
order to offset declines in Japan’s own working age population. The thesis aims to explain
why Japan remains so reluctant to accept migrant workers from abroad, even though this may
offer a solution to the problems of demographic decline and depopulation.
I contend that conventional analyses of Japan’s immigration policies do not provide
adequate explanations for why Japan continues to exclude foreign labourers. Rather, I argue
that Japan’s attitude must be understood in connection with a binary, “us-and-them” mindset
toward foreign countries and communities collectively that exists in Japan’s governing and
bureaucratic institutions. This mindset is evident in Japan’s practical labour policy
implementation, and has important cultural and political implications for Japan’s public
discourses of national identity and interests.
The thesis argues that Japan remains unwilling to accept migrant labourers because of
an immigration policy structure that resolutely adheres to an outdated view of migrants as
mere units of labour. This overlooks changed global models of migration that prioritise
human rights, proactive social integration and strategic selection of migrants. While Japan
could ease the effects of depopulation and demographic decline by revising core policy
assumptions in order to effectively integrate migrants into the dwindling national workforce,
it has so far failed to engage with newer models of migration. My analysis locates Japan’s
crisis within a wider context of global demographic change and transnational population
movement in the twenty-first century.
