WI Europe doesn't allow Immigration like Japan

Japan's population is in decline and its economy is in the crapper. It refuses to allow immigration to help out its fortunes.

Considering the immigration problems in Europe, I'm wondering, what if they did the same thing? Would the EU's GDP still be larger than the US? Would the people that left for Europe OTL stay in their own countries or would they go somewhere else?
 
They end up like Japan trading social harmony and low crime for slower growth, higher taxes and an even more aged population. That said per capita incomes would not be affected and would keep on growing as technological improvements and productivity gains occur so only the headline GDP figure would be lower.
 
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What sort of POD would you need to achieve this? You have to consider that the two regions have vastly different historical and cultural backgrounds that led to the current immigration policies.

Japan is an island nation that pretty much practised isolation for a good part of the 300 years before modernization. Even without the Tokugawa isolation policy, any prospective immigrants to Japan would be hard pressed to get there by the virtue of geography alone.

Europe meanwhile is many nations with people moving about all the time. Just think of Marie Curie (Polish), Karl Marx (stayed in London), Napoleon, and even some of the monarchs themselves! People were simply free to move wherever they wanted ever since serfdom was abolished. The states didn't even practise immigration control until the onset of WWI. And even the wars didn't really stop people from moving about.

A Soviet-dominated Europe may be a good POD for this, though achieving this is a tall order.

And if you want a POD that's right now, then this thread belongs to Chat.
 
Intra European migration can't be avoided since it has always existed throughout Europe's history. Avoiding immigration from outside Europe is however achievable though is quite a stretch. A primary reason behind the mass immigration of Asians in Britain, Turks in Germany and Arabs in France was a desire by some industrialists to have a large pool of low wage and non unionised workers. It was an easy way for these declining industries like textile, steel and coal mining to lower their costs. Unfortunately immigration provided only a temporary solution and the industries continued to decline.

If a more laisser faire approach is in place, coupled with a greater incentives towards increased work productivity and automation. Then it should be possible to considerably reduce non-European immigration. I doubt very much that it would be completely avoided altogether, but this should do the trick in reducing it.
 
Japan does allow immigration.
Its just a bit masked due to Japan not seeing a distinction between being ethnically Japanese and being a Japanese citizen so they slot in all those south american Japanese immigrants very sneakily in their statistics.
Aside from those though they do have over 2 million legal immigrants and probally many more illegals.

What are these immigration problems in Europe might I ask?
 
Japan does allow immigration.
Its just a bit masked due to Japan not seeing a distinction between being ethnically Japanese and being a Japanese citizen so they slot in all those south american Japanese immigrants very sneakily in their statistics.
Aside from those though they do have over 2 million legal immigrants and probally many more illegals.

What are these immigration problems in Europe might I ask?

The increase in anti-immigrant feelings in response to both the left feeling abandoned in favour of neo-liberalism so they turn to far right parties that have a sort of leftist economic view i.e. nationalising some industries and the radicalisation of a minority of Muslims ironically in response to growing anti-immigrant feeling.
 
Japan isn't quite as homogeneous as most believe. About 2 million foreigners live there, but most have no means of becoming Japanese citizens and few intend to settle in Japan permanently. They're what would be considered "guest workers" in most countries.
 
Japan isn't quite as homogeneous as most believe. About 2 million foreigners live there, but most have no means of becoming Japanese citizens and few intend to settle in Japan permanently. They're what would be considered "guest workers" in most countries.

"No means"? How do you figure? As near as I can tell, anyone who has lived in Japan legally for the required number of years can apply. There is no ethnicity requirement for citizenship, they just don't give citizenship by virtue of birth in the country (unless the child is stateless). Although their numbers are small, there are Iranian-Japanese, (white) American-Japanese, etc. I don't think there are any legal barriers preventing foreigners living in Japan from becoming citizens.

Of course, it is true that it can be quite difficult to get a visa to live and work in Japan. But for anyone who does get one, getting citizenship would be well within their means down the road. I just think most Chinese or Korean workers, for example, want to make money in Japan, and then go home. They don't become Japanese because they don't want to, not because they can't.
 
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