Why are the populations of modern Japan and South Korea so homogenous?

[Godye Scaro X9]

Why is it that so few people choose to immigrate to Japan and South Korea, despite the two being highly developed countries with declining birth rates?

Most of the rich countries of the world have declining birth rates and negative population growth and most have opened up their borders to allow immigrants to enter the country and naturalize. The UK, Netherlands, US, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, etc. all have large populations of migrants from poorer countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Some countries like the US and Australia have a long history of immigration while for others like Germany and France, this is a more recent phenomenon.

There are virtually no other developed countries as demographically homogenous as Japan or South Korea. The only one that I could find which comes even remotely close is Iceland (where 93 percent of its population are Icelandic).

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[KimNam]

imo, the problem are :
- language barrier, they have different letter/alphabet with many of us. hangul and hiragana (+ kanji) are hard to learn.
- not a stable politics, who want to leave in the country that have actual enemy near their border? with north Korea (with nuclear weapon) can invade any time, it's not a good options to live in South Korea.
- population density, Japan and South Korea are small (medium? ) size country with many population there, it makes those country have densely populated are. you can see here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_by_population_density.svg
and maybe live in S.Korea and Japan is expensive. i once went to tokyo and find out how expensive there

[ensurance982]

I think the number 1 reason is the language barrier, most immigrants choose to use English as the main language and they have very different culture. And most of this people do not want to marry any people different from them.

[Ekaros]

Their geopolitical location. Nearest neighbours are China, Russia and North Korea. Koreans are ethnically same race. China has room for internal movement as does Russia. So it's really comes down to fact that there isn't any countries from immigration to come from.

That is one reason I can see. Europe has Mediterrean Sea and is one landmass which is quite narrow compared. And USA has long border with Mexico.

[Honeypot]

That is actually a false idea that they are ethnically homogeneous. Various parts of korea or japan and especially china have their slight but definitive physical characteristic traits that distinguish one from another - and much of it has to do with genetic intermingling with okinawans, sea faring chinese and wa piracy, and also some influence from SE asia and mongolia, with koreans in NK showing much more mongol traits vs. those in the south showing much intermingling with japanese, and some japanese in the western portion showing intermingling with okinawans and koreans.

Just because us non-asians are incapable of seeing much difference between one east asian and another doesn't mean they are actually homogeneous - in fact, most asians are well aware of regionalism that stem not only from culture and distance but also slight but definitive physical characteristics that is the result of foreign and non-core ethnic influence upon people in those regions.

The idea that they are 'ethnically pure and homogeneous' is just a fantasy propagated and gaining popular acceptance due to racial and xenophobic tendencies of east asian societies. If they go by dna and genetic analysis, they will show strong influence of southeast asian ethnicities as well as central asiatic and mongol dna, not to mention significant intermingling and interbreeding between chinese, japanese, and koreans over many years.

They try to shoe horn people into believing they are uniform and one in the same, when in fact they themselves are mongrel byproducts of thousands of years of intermingling and outside influences.

Also, OP you are wrong that they have decent birthrate. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. Both japan and korea have sub replacement birthrates, and in japan it's especially critical in addition to their aging problem. Korea is in fact following a similar trend. Both countries are actually seeing vastly increased influx of laborers and working immigrants working the most dangerous and dirty jobs, and it's actually becoming a social issue where these groups are demanding to be treated with respect and dignity - how dare they!

In the west, the core mainstream ethnic group (europeans and european descended peoples)'s birth rate is actually recovering in US and approaching the replacement level - and aging is not much of an issue due to such increase in birthrate trend that has recently started.

[Swordsoffreedom]

I think the number 1 reason is the language barrier, most immigrants choose to use English as the main language and they have very different culture. And most of this people do not want to marry any people different from them.

It's hard to become a Japanese citizen since you need to revoke your citizenship and passport to become one Japan only allows one nationality per person.
The language barrier would be the secondary concern.

Naturalization in Japan requires the applicant to renounce their current citizenship(s) after the naturalization takes place
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/12/27/news/many-angles-to-acquiring-japanese-citizenship/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+japantimes+%28The+Japan+Times%253A+All+Stories%29

Not sure about South Korea

[bryant.coleman]

Immigrants in general don't prefer Japan or South Korea. Here are the reasons:

1. Both the nations are extremely expensive to live.
2. Salaries are not comparable to those in the EU, at least for the blue collar jobs.
3. Long working hours (12-14 hours a day).
4. Language barriers.
5. Difficulty in receiving a work visa.
6. Employers are very strict and demanding.
7. Lack of welfare benefits.

There are some immigrants, but they are mostly from China and DPRK.

[hologram]

Maybe a simple reason: Are the girls hot ? 

[maurya78]

What makes you think the population is largely homogeneous?
Large Korean pop in japan
Masayoshi Son of SoftBank is of Korean descent

[Daniel91]

Why are the populations of modern Japan and South Korea so homogenous?
I visited Korea several times so from my own experience main reason is their strong family ties and culture, their history and tradition.
Japan was isolated from outside world until 1867, Korea also, so they lived separately from outside world and developed unique culture and tradition, without much influence from strangers.
of course, in recent days this changed a lot.

[247crypto]

In Japan is the law about paying foreign workers.
All foreign workers need be payed more, than Japanese.
In that way no one will employ foreigners, and it provoke not immigrations flow.

[beetcoin]

i thought there were a lot of americans/foreigners in japan? seems like it's a place where a lot of people like.

but yeah, japan has a population of 130 million, and sparse amount of land.. there already overstuffed as it is. south korea is the same.

[Lethn]

i thought there were a lot of americans/foreigners in japan? seems like it's a place where a lot of people like.

but yeah, japan has a population of 130 million, and sparse amount of land.. there already overstuffed as it is. south korea is the same.

It's overstuffed in the major cities where everybody wants to live, like every bit of land on the planet, the reason people have so much difficulty getting places is because everything is based in the big cities and there's bugger all development or even an attempt of making life more comfortable in the countryside.

Yeah, Tokyo is definitely overcrowded like crazy, space is valuable there, but go to somewhere like Sapporo or Hokkaido out in the country and you can get some great detached houses for something like half or more the price of what it would cost if you got the same house in the city. The situation is the same in every country where people want to live, in the UK the housing market is particularly bad like that, in London for a basic flat you're going to end up paying several times average price just to be able to own it, however if you just decide to live on the outskirts and pay for a car the discount is crazy in comparison.

[beetcoin]

i thought there were a lot of americans/foreigners in japan? seems like it's a place where a lot of people like.

but yeah, japan has a population of 130 million, and sparse amount of land.. there already overstuffed as it is. south korea is the same.

It's overstuffed in the major cities where everybody wants to live, like every bit of land on the planet, the reason people have so much difficulty getting places is because everything is based in the big cities and there's bugger all development or even an attempt of making life more comfortable in the countryside.

Yeah, Tokyo is definitely overcrowded like crazy, space is valuable there, but go to somewhere like Sapporo or Hokkaido out in the country and you can get some great detached houses for something like half or more the price of what it would cost if you got the same house in the city. The situation is the same in every country where people want to live, in the UK the housing market is particularly bad like that, in London for a basic flat you're going to end up paying several times average price just to be able to own it, however if you just decide to live on the outskirts and pay for a car the discount is crazy in comparison.

of course there's countryside where not so many people live, but in terms of how japan compares to other countries, there isn't enough land for people to live there. besides, if you are moving to japan, would you really want to live in the countryside? that's why they have so many technologies invested to accomodate smaller spaces. south korea is about the same.. it's one of the most densely populated countries in the world. there are more south koreans leaving the country than foreigners entering it.

here are the numbers http://countrystudies.us/japan/51.htm

even though those studies were from 20 years ago, and japan's population is decreasing, those numbers from 1993 are a lot higher compared to western countries.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Well forgot to mention this previously but their may still be some tangents of Xenophobia in both those countries as well
Scared of foreigners living there and whatnot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan#Pre-war_xenophobia

A handful of apartments, motels, night clubs, brothels, sex parlours and public baths in Japan have put up signs stating that foreigners are not allowed, or that they must be accompanied by a Japanese person to enter.

However, many Japanese claim that these signs are very rare and the prohibitions are due to perceived social incompatibility—for example, foreigners may not understand Japanese bathhouse etiquette—and not racism

(So no sex parlor unless you bring a friend  )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea#Xenophobia_in_the_media

Korea mentions

A website called Anti-English Spectrum has been widely consulted by Korean newspapers about an alleged spree of foreign crime, despite being considered a hate group by outsiders.

n 2008, Seoul.com issued a press release referring to foreigners as "poisonous mushrooms" and "viruses". In their official apology, the website stated that "our English is much better than [the critics'] Korean" and that "they must learn the Korean culture of statics.

And of course Korea times reported that anti foreigners groups are on the rise, not sure how much is still up to date but elements still exist

(Not sure on their sex parlor rules here lol)

[bryant.coleman]

Large Korean pop in japan

The Korean population in Japan is fractional. They are around 0.3-0.4% of the total population. Korea was ruled by Japan for many decades and some of the Koreans laborers were brought to Japan to work in the factories there. Most of them have completely assimilated with the Japanese society, despite the extreme racism which they face there.