Immigration

Japan’s ageing, shrinking population

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Whichever party wins Japan’s August 30 general election must deal with a population forecast to shrink and age rapidly, because of the country’s low birth rate, high life expectancy and aversion to immigration.
Following are some facts about Japan’s population trends.

* Japan is currently the world’s 10th-largest country in terms of population, with more than 127 million people. By 2050, it is forecast to rank 18th, with 93.7 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

* That compares with Russia’s population, which is also forecast to fall from 140 million in 2009 to 109.2 million in 2050, knocking it from 9th position to 16th.

* Japan’s population dependency ratio, or the number of people of working age supporting each elderly person, stood at 3.3 in 2005, but will fall to 1.3 by 2055 according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

* An IMF study calculated that Japan’s real GDP would fall by a cumulative 20 percent over the next century, compared with a baseline simulation with a stationary population.

* The Health Ministry forecasts pension costs will rise to 56 trillion yen in 2015, compared with 39.5 trillion yen in 2006, while health care spending is expected to rise to 37 trillion from 27.5 trillion in 2006. Some in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) say consumption tax will need to be raised from the current five percent in future to fund rising social security costs.

* Defense spending has been falling annually from a high of 49.4 trillion yen as social security takes an increasing share of the budget. It will likely fall further and Japan may have trouble staffing its [constitutionally illegal] military due to the shortage of young people.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, IMF, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Defense Ministry, Pacific Forum CSIS

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE56U02620090731

New law: no dues, no visa

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On a drab, rainy Sunday in June, a group of foreign workers gathered at the office of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu in Shimbashi to discuss an equally drab topic: social insurance. According to a new immigration law passed by the Diet earlier this month, foreign residents will be required to show proof of enrollment in Japan’s health insurance program in order to renew or apply for a visa after April 1, 2010.

A handful of attendees were young, but most were middle-aged or approaching retirement age. Many had been working in Japan for years and had never been told anything about insurance, while others were aware of the program but had been dissuaded by their employers from joining it.

Louis Carlet, deputy secretary of Nambu, laid it down for everyone in the room to understand. There are a few basic things that all foreigners in Japan have to know, he explained: first, that everyone over the age of 20 in Japan is required to enroll in an approved Japanese government health insurance scheme and pension fund. If you are under 75 and working at a company that employs more than five people, this most likely means the shakai hoken (social insurance) program; if you are unemployed, self-employed or retired, the equivalent system is the kokumin kenko hoken and kokumin nenkin (national health insurance and pension). The only people exempt are sailors, day laborers, and those working for companies employing less than five people, or for firms without a permanent address (e.g. a film set).

The two systems cover different ground, all of which is explained in detail at www.sia.go.jp/e/ehi.html. Roughly, shakai hoken consists of two parts: kenko hoken (health insurance), which covers 70 percent of your medical costs and 60 percent of lost wages due to illness, and kosei nenkin (pension insurance), which provides a pension after age 65 for those who have paid into the system. The two are inseparable, and anyone enrolled in shakai hoken through their employer automatically pays into both. The kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance) and kokumin nenkin (national pension) package offers similar coverage but is not provided through an employer.

The bottom line is that all residents of Japan (except those mentioned above) have to be enrolled in one or other of the two systems. The revised visa laws, therefore, should pose no threat to anyone’s visa renewal, because every foreigner in Japan should already be enrolled.

However, the reality is that most foreigners in Japan do not have either form of insurance. For example, a 2004 survey by Hiroshi Kojima of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research found that only 28.3 percent of Japanese Brazilians in Iwata City, Shizuoka Pref., had any kind of health insurance, and that of these only a third were enrolled in shakai hoken. Another survey in 2009 found that just one out of 27 manufacturing companies had enrolled its foreign employees in workers’ compensation, leaving thousands of foreigners ineligible for any form of assistance when the economic downturn hit Japan last year, leading to mass layoffs.

Foreign workers often hear a litany of reasons why they should not be enrolled in shakai hoken, or are simply not told about it at all. Employers would have a much tougher time leaving their Japanese staff off the system, argues Carlet, as many associate shakai hoken with a certain social status — those left out of the system tend to be in insecure employment such as day labor and very short-term contract work. For many Japanese workers, nonenrollment implies that their company either doesn’t value them as a long-term employee or simply doesn’t have the funds to cover the cost of insurance.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090728zg.html

Registered foreign population in Japan hits record-high 2.21 million

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The number of registered foreign residents in Japan hit a record high of 2,217,000 at the end of 2008, marking an increase of around 50% in the last decade, a report released by the Justice Ministry said Friday. The registered foreign population accounts for 1.74% of Japan’s total population, it said.

Chinese nationals accounted for the largest group of foreign residents at around 30%, or 655,000 people, followed by Koreans at 589,000, Brazilians at 313,000, Filipinos at 211,000 and Peruvians at 60,000. The number of permanent residents increased to 492,000, up 11.9%, and that of nonpermanent residents with skilled labor visas rose by 21.6%. Most foreign nationals resided in Tokyo, with 402,000 registered, followed by Aichi and Osaka prefectures.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/registered-foreign-population-in-japan-hits-record-high-221-million

Justice Ministry to clear up guidelines for special residence permits

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The Justice Ministry will clarify its guidelines for awarding special residence permits to encourage illegal immigrants, fearful of deportation under the current vague standards, to turn themselves in.

Justice Minister Eisuke Mori said Friday the revisions would spell out the “positive” and “negative” factors that are taken into consideration for granting special permits that allow otherwise illegal foreigners to stay in the country.

The ministry’s vague and seemingly arbitrary process of granting special permits has been a target of criticism from groups supporting foreign nationals and lawyers.

Those who have overstayed their visas may be unsure if they qualify for the special permits, so they refuse to step forward and risk deportation.

On Wednesday, the Diet passed a bill to revise the immigration control law and introduce a new program within three years that will benefit legal foreign residents but isolate those here illegally.

Currently, an estimated 130,000 foreigners are residing illegally in Japan.

Under the new guidelines for the special permits, one of the biggest positive factors is if the foreign resident is living with biological children who have been in Japan for 10 or more years and are currently attending elementary, junior high or senior high school.

People with children in junior high school or higher levels of education have often been granted special residence permits. The scope will effectively widen under the new guidelines.

Another main positive factor is if the applicant is suffering from a serious illness, or has kin suffering from illness, that requires treatment in Japan.

Other factors that would work in favor of the foreign resident are residency in Japan for 20 years or longer and if the resident surrenders to authorities.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200907100289.html

New special residency permit guidelines established

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New guidelines for special residency permits issued by the Minister of Justice to foreigners who have received deportation orders for illegal overstays have been established, the Ministry of Justice announced Friday.

Listed as having grounds for positive consideration include: those who are raising biological children in elementary, junior, or senior high school and who have lived in Japan for 10 years or more; those who have lived in Japan for 20 years and are firmly rooted in Japan; and those who turn themselves into authorities for illegally overstaying and have no records of other law violations.

Meanwhile, those who have illegally issued or received passports, or entered the country on fraudulent passports or visas are unlikely to be eligible for special residency permits. Even those who have lived in Japan for 20 years or more, will be considered for deportation if they have been convicted of illegally issuing or receiving passports.

While special residence permission is left to the justice minister’s discretion, guidelines for granting permission were established by the Ministry of Justice for the first time in October 2006. The latest revision took place because of a supplementary provision written by both ruling and opposition party legislators into the amended Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law that passed during the current Diet session to “increase the transparency of special residence permissions.”

In 2008, 8,522 foreigners were granted special residency permits, meaning that a little over 70 percent of all petitions for permission have been granted. In March 2009, Justice Minister Eisuke Mori granted special residence permission to a 14-year-old Saitama girl who was born and raised in Japan and whose parents had been deported to the Philippines for illegally entering Japan, given that she lives with her relatives.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/
20090710p2a00m0na004000c.html

Diet approves revised law on immigration

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In a major policy shift, the Upper House on Wednesday passed an immigration revision bill that will tighten controls on illegal foreigners while [supposedly] easing restrictions on those living here legally.

The main feature of the revisions to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law is the introduction of an IC card that will replace the existing alien registration card. Foreign residents with the new cards will be registered in the Basic Resident Register, and their whereabouts will be uniformly monitored by the central government.

The revised law will take effect within the next three years.

At the end of 2008, a record 2.217 million people held alien registration cards, which can be obtained from local governments even without a proper visa.

However, only legally residing foreigners who have stayed in Japan for more than three months will be able to receive the IC cards and be entered in the Basic Resident Register.

Changes of address will be monitored by the Justice Ministry through municipalities. Businesses and schools will be obliged to make efforts to cooperate with the central government in providing information on foreign nationals they employ or enroll.

Foreign residents will be required to carry the IC cards at all times, much like the rules for alien registration cards.

Also like the alien registration cards, the new cards will carry the bearer’s picture, name, nationality, address, as well as visa status and period of validity.

The new cards will clearly state whether the card holder is allowed to work in Japan…[and] the IC chips will prevent counterfeiting.

The benefits of the revisions for legally residing foreign residents include an extension of the maximum length of visas from three to five years.

In addition, foreign residents traveling abroad will no longer be required to obtain re-entry permits as long as they return to Japan within a year.

But one problem with the new system is how to deal with the estimated 130,000 illegal foreigners in the country. Some critics predict that undocumented foreigners could be driven underground.

The revisions also include amendments to an industrial training and technical internship program. The amendments offer a new visa status for foreign trainees. They will be protected under labor standard and minimum wage laws from their first year in Japan.

This revision will take effect within a year.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200907090081.html

Diet OKs bills to up foreigner controls

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The Diet passed bills Wednesday that tighten controls on foreign residents, paving the way for them to take effect within three years, despite opposition from foreigners and human rights activists.

The planned enforcement follows an agreement on the bills reached last month between the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party.

The bills, which cleared an Upper House plenary session, will abolish the Alien Registration Act and revise immigration control and resident registration laws.

Rights activists condemned the bills for excessively tightening controls on foreigners.

“We will keep fighting against the enforcement of the bills in municipalities, the Diet and the United Nations, seeking cooperation from nongovernmental organizations in Japan and the world,” said Nobuyuki Sato, representative of Research-Action Institute for the Koreans in Japan, which wants the bills abolished.

The Immigration Bureau and lawmakers worked out the bills to reduce the number of undocumented foreign residents, which the bureau estimates total about 110,000.

Human rights activists, including Akira Hatate, director of the nongovernmental organization Japan Civil Liberties Union, said that instead of focusing on reducing the number of illegal residents, the government should treat overstayers as members of society that can help the country prosper.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090709a3.html

Activist sees holes in bills to snare illegals

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CONTROLS ON FOREIGNERS

Activist Akira Hatate opposes the bills to tighten control of foreign residents, arguing they will not serve the government’s goal of clarifying who is in the country illegally because transgressors will see little benefit in turning themselves in.

“What (the bills will) achieve is to tighten control of law-abiding foreigners, who have no need to be under tight control,” Hatate, director of the nongovernmental organization Japan Civil Liberties Union.

“The bills are very unbalanced because the government will not be able to control the intended target: undocumented foreigners,” Hatate said. “Instead they will greatly tighten the leash on properly registered foreigners, who do not need monitoring.

“To me, this is the government’s reinforcement of infrastructure to control foreigners. Fingerprinting at airports is to control entrants and the bills are to control residents. The government probably thinks it needs to do this because the number of foreigners will inevitably increase,” he said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090630f1.html

Drawing a bead on illegal residents

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New law would tighten up oversight of foreigners

Human rights groups complain that because the justice minister can access foreign residents’ personal information with residence (“zairyu”) card numbers, which are to be given to every documented foreigner, it is an infringement of privacy. [Immigration Bureau General Affairs Division official Kazuyuki] Motohari defended the bureau by saying, “It is not unusual for us to hold information that helps us confirm the identify of foreign residents.”

The bills stipulate that the justice minister must not use residents’ personal information for purposes other than “managing” foreign residents and must handle the information in a way that does not violate privacy.

He also said it is essential to let foreigners know the rule changes, including advantages such as extending visa duration from three to five years and ending the requirement to obtain a re-entry permit if one returns to Japan within a year.

“It will undoubtedly be more convenient for legal residents,” he said.

The bureau’s statistics show 1.41 million foreign residents re-entered Japan within a year in 2007, accounting for 98.7 percent of the 1.43 million who left Japan after obtaining a re-entry permit.

The Immigration Bureau is considering enabling foreign residents to report changes in workplace and apply for renewal of residence cards via mail or the Internet instead of requiring them to go to local immigration offices, he said.

Currently, renewing alien registration cards, which are to be replaced by zairyu cards, and reporting changes in personal information can be done at municipal offices, more of which exist than immigration offices.

For address changes, residents can go to municipal offices even under the new system. For changes in name, gender and nationality, they will have to go to immigration offices instead of municipal offices, but such changes rarely occur.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090627f1.html

Japan To Introduce ‘Point System’ To Attract Foreigners

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The Japanese government plans to introduce a ”point system” to give preferential treatment such as residency permit extensions to foreigners with advanced expertise, Kyodo news reported quoting government sources as saying on Sunday.

The government plans to evaluate foreigners by awarding points for their qualifications, working careers, research achievements and other qualities and to give preferential treatment when their points exceed a certain level, the sources said.

The new system will form part of a reform of the residency permit system amid intensified international competition for engineers and other experts with advanced expertise.

A Justice Ministry panel will discuss the plan soon to begin mapping out the new system.

The government is expected to study simplifying procedures for residency permits and reentry, extending the maximum duration of residency permits from three years at present and shortening the period of residency required before securing the right to permanent residency from 10 years in principle.

The ministry will decide on the jobs to be included under the new system in consultation with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and other ministries and agencies.

A government panel compiled a report last month that included a study on the introduction of the new system.

Similar point systems have been introduced in Britain and Canada. In Britain, the system is applied to scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers and teachers, who can obtain the right of permanent residence in five years if they are recognised as experts with advanced expertise.

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=419721