NYT: xenophobic Japan builds robots

[Matthew C. Perry]

Leave it to the New York Times to come up with this angle on the Japanese robotics industry. You see, there are robotic bathtubs now that allow frail elderly people to wash themselves without need for an assistant...

These devices and others in the works will push Japanese sales of domestic robots to $14 billion in 2010 and $40 billion in 2025 from nearly $4 billion currently, according to the Japan Robot Association.

Leaders of the Philippines and Thailand, two countries that are negotiating free trade pacts with Japan, suggest a different route: granting work visas to tens of thousands of foreign nurses. But that is unlikely in a nation that last year granted asylum to only 10 refugees and in the last decade has issued about 50,000 work visas a year 窶 a fraction of the 640,000 immigrants a year that demographers say are necessary to prevent Japan's population from shrinking.

Building on such xenophobia, Japan's nurses' unions successfully lobbied lawmakers of the governing Liberal Democratic Party in late February to block the admission of foreign doctors and nurses.

http://www.globalaging.org/elderrights/world/2004/japaninvention.htm

Shame on Japan for building useful machines that eliminate the need for mass third world immigration.

 

[Mandylion]

Shame on Japan for overly restrictive immigration policies.

The Philippines and Thailand are after work visas, not citizenship, and their comments are what all governments do - take amoment to steal a bit of the spotlight and raise an issue or two. I don't think they were shaming Japan for building robots, nor would those machines elimitate the need for "mass thirdworld immigration." God forbid a little competition should enter the health care network in Japan. Things might improve (gasp).

Call me a luddite, but no machine can do as good a job as washing someone as a human. Do you really want a machine up in *there* anyway? A robot is not going to wash away Japan's underlying troubles with immigrants and an aging population. If anything it is only another expensive quick fix.

 

[Matthew C. Perry]

Shame on Japan for overly restrictive immigration policies.

Overly restrictive? How so? How many immigrants would you like to see enter Japan each year? How would a large increase in this number benefit the country?

I don't think they were shaming Japan for building robots, nor would those machines elimitate the need for "mass thirdworld immigration."

No, the statements by the Philippine and Thai governments had nothing to do with robotics. It was the NYT writer who made the conneection.

Call me a luddite, but no machine can do as good a job as washing someone as a human. Do you really want a machine up in *there* anyway?

The people who use the high tech bathtubs seem to like them. And yes, personally I would prefer washing myself with the aid of a machine to being dependant on some paid attendant.

A robot is not going to wash away Japan's underlying troubles with immigrants and an aging population. If anything it is only another expensive quick fix.

Japan has an aging population. This is not necessarily a problem, just a situation that requires some adjustments. Allowing mass third world immigration is one adjustment that might be made, but not a wise move IMO. Certainly it is not the only possible way to avoid some doomsday scenario, as many seem to think.

 

[Mandylion]

Overly restrictive? How so? How many immigrants would you like to see enter Japan each year? How would a large increase in this number benefit the country?

Restrictive immigration policy doesn't just mean the number of visas a government hands out, but also how easy it is for people to make Japan their home/start to assimilate.

But to start, only 10 asylum grants? The US has had to cap the number of asylum grants to 1000 a year, since I think 2000, to stop from being overrun. INS, now CSIS, at one point had a backlog of 450,000 asylum cases. 10 cases from a country that likes to tout its nonagression and humanitarianism? It is laughable at best, tragic at the least.

Then lets look at the permanent resident issue. It takes 5 years of being married to a Japanese citizen, or 10 if you are not, to be eligible for a permanent resident visa. In the US this would be called a Green Card. My wife was eligible for a green card the second we were married. According to Maciamo, immigration to EU countries if married to an EU citizen is very simple - even more so than the US.

Then you have the issue of children of Korean and other nationals born in Japan, even if the parents are second third, and fourth generation Japanese-whatever not having citizenship and enjoying the full protections of the only land they know. Unlike the US, Japan does not grant citizenship based on location of birth even if the children come from a family with generations of roots in Japan.

Permanent residents cannot recieve residency certificates which are important for lots of tasks like enrolling a child in school, getting a back loan, setting up a house.

Then you have problem with foreigners being refused services (apartments etc) only becuse they are not Japanese.

The lists go on. Just run any google search on Japanese immigration policies.

I don't know how many immigrants Japan needs to benefit the country, I am not an expert. I shall leave it to them. However, it seems that keeping legal immigrants out is contributing to illegal immigration because there is a high demand and the trade in immigrants is very profitable for the gangs that run them. Seems to me a policy of controled immigration would better protect the rights of workers, benefit the Japanese economy, and leave everyone better off.

(note- I hope no one takes this as Japan has it all wrong or is the only one the have such restrictions, or that the US etc have it all right. That is not the case in the least. Don't get me going on US immigration policy )

 

[Matthew C. Perry]

Well, I agree that Japan could do a lot more towards accomodating it's long term residents. But that really isn't the issue I hoped to get at in this thread.

However, it seems that keeping legal immigrants out is contributing to illegal immigration because there is a high demand and the trade in immigrants is very profitable for the gangs that run them. Seems to me a policy of controled immigration would better protect the rights of workers, benefit the Japanese economy, and leave everyone better off.

Japan HAS a policy of controlled immigration. What the NYT writer, and many others seem to want is a massive change in that policy that would allow hundreds of thousands more people in per year. Far from protecting the rights of workers, this would lead to wage deflation, just as it has in the US, not to mention the huge cultrual conflicts, and likely anti-foreigner backlash that would result.

 

[Mandylion]

Soory if I took this thread off on a tangent. I wans't trying to And yes, I mis-typed, Japan does have a controlled immigration system, I was trying to say it could be controlled, but more relaxed.

As it is, doesn't illegal immigration deflate wages even more? You don't even have to pay them minimum wage. Most of the jobs immigrants would fill to begin with would be minimum wage jobs anyway, so I am not sure how much of an impact massive immigration would have.

The cultural problem is a point well taken, and that is one of the hard questions Japan is going to have to deal with.

Unless Japan wants to deal with having one retired person for every wage, and tax, earner as is mentioned in the article, something needs to be done. If you are just after tax revenue to stop the pension and insurance systems from failing, short term residents (immigrants) seem to be the way to go. You can then buy some time and reorient your economy to industry (I haven't the fainest idea what kind) to produce more revenue with fewer workers.

If you just want Japanese women to start poping out babies, you need to provide a social network the likes of which Japan is not accustomed to - better daycare and support of working mothers, tax breaks for families, and somehow prop up the economy until all those little ones get old enough to work. But then there is no gaurantee those children will want to work in poor conditions for poor wages - the jobs the immigrants will be taking.

Just as an aside, in the last year I have had both my national health insurance benefits cut and the amount I can recieve from the pension system by a few % each. Doesn't sound like a lot but that adds up to thousands of dollars/yen as the years go by. Kind of seems to me that if you start to have to cut programs, you have been a bit slow in trying to solve the problem...

 

[Matthew C. Perry]

As it is, doesn't illegal immigration deflate wages even more? You don't even have to pay them minimum wage. Most of the jobs immigrants would fill to begin with would be minimum wage jobs anyway, so I am not sure how much of an impact massive immigration would have.

There is some illegal immigration into Japan, but really very little compared to other wealthy countries. Yes, new Third World immigrants would take existing minimum wage jobs, but in addition, whole new classes of jobs would likely move toward the minimum wage level. This is what is happening in the US. Meatpackers were once very well paid blue collar workers, now the industry is dominated by immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, and wages are just above the minimum.

Also, there is no present need in Japan for more workers. Manufacturing jobs are flooding out of the country. Workers are being replaced by robots. Immigration enthusiasts point to projected future labor needs which may never actually appear.

Unless Japan wants to deal with having one retired person for every wage, and tax, earner as is mentioned in the article, something needs to be done.

But that would never happen of course. Long before anything close to a one to one ratio developed, people would stop retiring at 60 or 65. If in the future there is a need for older people in the labor force, then older people will work. Most people now-a-days are still reasonably healthy past age 70 and probably wouldn't mind working and contributing, at least part time.

 

[Uncle Frank]

Too Many Robots In Health Care Now !!

One of my gripes about fellow health care workers is that they act TOO much like robots. They act like they work at a car wash when they wash the elderly; rinse,soap,rinse,wax(apply body powder & lotion),buff and on to the next car(person)! No conversation or loving attention to detail! The elderly need companionship as well as a wash job.
I have to admit, a foreigner might not be to great about conversing with the elderly. Here in the states we have a little trouble with the elderly accepting health care workers who can't speak English clearly & without an accent.

Frank