While this is generally a pretty reasonable ask in most situations, it seems like now is the worst possible time for them to make immigration more difficult. The coming demographic collapse is not a question of “if,” but “how bad,” at this point. Even if their birth rate proportionally climbs to the highest in the world magically over night, they are still looking at severe issues, and now many of those new births will still be dependants when it happens. They should really be incentivising immigration as hard as they can to take the edge off of what is coming at this point.
While this is generally a pretty reasonable ask in most situations, it seems like now is the worst possible time for them to make immigration more difficult. The coming demographic collapse is not a question of “if,” but “how bad,” at this point. Even if their birth rate proportionally climbs to the highest in the world magically over night, they are still looking at severe issues, and now many of those new births will still be dependants when it happens. They should really be incentivising immigration as hard as they can to take the edge off of what is coming at this point.
Sure, you are probably right about that. But I never argued against that, I just disagree that this a prime example of Japanese xenophobia.