Japan is facing an aging society and a low birth rate, which turned out to be a dreadful combination. In order to “save Japan” from extinction and economical degradation, the Japanese government...Show moreJapan is facing an aging society and a low birth rate, which turned out to be a dreadful combination. In order to “save Japan” from extinction and economical degradation, the Japanese government made effort in taking some measurements they saw as the best acceptable solutions. The most important of these included increasing the number of women, elderly, and even robots in the labor force to fill the labor shortages, while stimulating women to have more children at the same time. However, many scholars and other organizations such as the International Monetary Fund have criticized the Japanese government’s strategy stating that the only way to really save Japan is to increase the extremely low share of foreigners in Japan. One would think that this solution would not be too big a problem to implement, especially in such a highly globalized world. However, for Japan this turned out not to be the case. In order to understand why Japan as one of the biggest industrialized countries has so few foreigners even in a globalizing era, this thesis has looked at different factors that have influenced this outcome. This has clearly shown that Japan in fact chooses to remain ethnically and culturally homogeneous.Show less