Robots Instead of Immigrants: The Positive Feedback of Japanese Migration Policy on Social Isolation and Communication Problems

• Main Author: Koudela, Pál
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Demographic decline; migration policy; robotics; hikikomori; communication problems
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/apssr/vol19/iss1/7; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/apssr/article/1203/viewcontent/fRA_206.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Demographic decline in contemporary Japan already leads to labor shortages, and there is still no existing fertility policy to stop the shrinking population. As an alternative, immigration policy could serve for replacement. However, the Japanese government opposes it mainly because of their idea of cultural homogeneity. Such thought has its historical and cultural background in the confrontation of centuries-long isolation and modern ethnic nationalism in the Meiji period. The recent plan of the Japanese leadership is to increase the role of robotics in affected professions such as caregiving. At this point, the social role of robots is going through a transformation and human-machine interactions increase the traditional communicational issues of Japanese people. Hikikomori is based on amae and receives positive feedback from a growing, more convenient non-human environment. As a long-term consequence, the already disintegrating Japanese society will face an extreme disaggregation in a not far future.