LONDON -- Recent marches in the United States by Latin Americans calling for some 12 million illegal immigrants to be given the right to reside and work in "the land of the free" are the most striking manifestation of a problem that affects every advanced country, although the issue is disguised in Japan.
In North America, and to a varying degree in Western European countries, immigrant labor is needed if essential services are to work properly and if crops are to be harvested. Individual residents of these countries accustomed to a relatively high standard of living are unwilling to carry out all the manual work needed to clean streets and put up buildings. These "dirty, difficult and dangerous" jobs, known as the three K's in Japanese (kitanai, kitsui and kiken), have to be done by someone at least until human ingenuity can replace the jobs with machines. Some workers can be recruited from among unemployed resident citizens but only at wages that public authorities funded by taxpayers are generally unwilling to pay.
The chance for higher wages and the expectation of better living conditions naturally spur people in poorer countries to emigrate. Emigration can benefit poorer countries by giving emigrants the opportunity to send remittances back home and by reducing population pressures, unemployment and under-employment. It can, however, be harmful to developing economies if too many highly qualified people such as doctors, nurses or engineers emigrate.