Japan's demographic time bomb is ticking away. In the coming decades, the nation faces a labor shortage and insolvency in pension and health programs unless drastic measures are adopted.
To address the labor shortage and the problems of too few workers supporting the costs of retirees, some advocate integrating Japanese women more effectively into the labor market and facilitating the inflow of more foreign workers. Resistance to such pragmatic policies remains robust since they challenge myths and prejudices embraced by many Japanese.
The editors of this book assert that "the dissonance between the objective conditions that will continue to bring high levels of immigration to Japan and the prevailing perception in Japan that this intrusion of foreigners has a limited time horizon can partly be attributed to a number of myths prevalent in Japan." Chief among those myths is the belief that Japan can do without immigrant workers and can continue to marginalize those who are allowed to enter on precarious terms.