Setting numerical targets on immigration or the birthrate is a typical government planning tool, but migration is much more than a mathematical equation. Japan's government needs to give serious consideration to establishing an interministerial entity that ensures a "whole-of-government" approach.
Holding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's demographic red line will be difficult unless Japan opens the door to immigration, a step policymakers have no intention of taking.
The Abe administration is poised to set a target of keeping the nation's population from falling below 100 million by 2060 in order to sustain economic growth and the social security system.
State mulls child-rearing support to keep population at 100 million
The government plans to support efforts to make child-rearing easier in a bid to keep Japan's population from falling below 100 million five decades from now, according to the blueprint for the plan. A draft of the plan to be finalized later this month by ...
Will Japan be a country that welcomes all?
"A nation of immigrants." Japan? The leading proponent of that vision has been Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, current executive director of the private think tank he founded in 2007, the Japan Immigration Policy Institute. His was long a voice in ...
Fix population problem by helping families
For the past 18 months, media outlets in Japan and abroad have looked approvingly upon Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to improve the country's economic future through proactive measures dubbed "Abenomics." The goal is to spur inflation so that companies can make more money ...
Population fixes have anti-foreign bias, official says
The government is in denial over Japan's looming demographic disaster and adopting unrealistic solutions to keep immigrants at arm's length, a former senior immigration official reveals.
Population panel draws line in sand
To prevent a crisis, Japan should try to keep its population at 100 million for the next 50 years by devoting more resources to child-rearing, a panel says.
Areas outside big cities to face drops in young women: study
A decline in young women in provincial areas over the next 30 years may trigger major population shrinkage in towns and cities across Japan, a study warns.
Towns, small cities likely to lose half their women by 2040: think tank
Nearly half of Japan's municipalities are likely to see their populations young women shrink by more than half by 2040 compared with 2010 if the flight to major cities continues apace, a study by the Japan Policy Council said Thursday. The demographic prediction was made ...
Myanmar's first census in 30 years extended amid controversy
A group of women dressed in green sarong-like longyis and simple white blouses stand around a table piled with census forms, entering neat notations on spreadsheets by hand. The women will have to go through 37,579 family census forms, according to officials, using calculators to ...
Japan may boost immigrant numbers
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga refuses to deny a media report that the Abe administration is considering increasing the number of immigrants to boost Japan's potential for long-term economic growth.
