Japan’s Foreign Population Dips

Like all countries, there are various foreigners living in Japan, and the “made in Japan” TV you bought last month was likely assembled in part by hands from Brazil, Peru, India, Korea, and so on. Last year the number of foreigners living in Japan declined for the first time since 1961, dropping by about 31,000 from the previous year to 2.2 million people, or 1.72% of Japan’s population. The reason of course is the bad economy and accompanying slashing of jobs in factories in 2008 and 2009, although most of those jobs have happily recovered. Having the number of foreigners living in Japan drop is a bad situation in part because many see immigration as the last chance Japan has to turn its population decline around. Since Japanese are only having 1.3 babies per couple on average, it’s up to immigration to help provide economic vitality as the country ages. Yet Japan has essentially zero people coming from the outside to settle permanently, compared with 1.2 million legal immigrants who enter the U.S. to live and work each year, contributing to the tax base and in many cases taking American citizenship and adding greatly to our country.

Japan’s foreign population dropped for the first time since 1961.