# Immigration and the Economy (and Japan)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigration-and-the-economy-and-japan/559394>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 4, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigration-and-the-economy-and-japan/559394 "2010-11-04T01:34:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigration-and-the-economy-and-japan/559394/21 "2010-11-05T15:19:33Z")

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> [@code\_grey](#):
>
> What does poor people’s birthrates being higher than some other people’s rates have to do with the reason of why their birthrates are nevertheless low? We are not having a gangsta rap battle here instead of a reasoned debate, are we?
> 
> So their low rates are higher than the even lower rates of the white collar ones? Well, no shit, huh. They weren’t up to the Baby Boom or even post Baby Boom level rates though, because the economy is in the toilet, wages are low, rents are high and immigration continues. There was a time when American whites reproduced significantly above the replacement level - that time was **before** the great immigration, great war on poverty, great Bush, great Obama and various other disasters that have befallen the nation over the years.

I notice you quoted all my post except for the part in which I asked you to provide cites. And then didn’t provide any cites.

Admittedly, that’s understandable because you can’t. In every part of the world, birth rates go down as overall wealth increases. That’s why the nonsense comments about “them” outreproducing “us” never quite come true. Large numbers of children are useful in societies in which they are economic assets who at an early age can contribute to the household, and especially so in farming economies. Those societies are also likely to have high rates of childhood mortality. We now know that working class families had on average fewer surviving children than middle and upper class families in Victorian England, even though their birth rates were significantly higher. Birth rates have gone down across developing nations in Africa and Asia as their economies get better and people move to cities. The trend continues for ever wealthier countries. Western Europe and Japan see well-below-replacement-rate births despite having none of the ills" you cite, a trend that started long before they started seeing even the minimal amount of immigration they have today.

Again, I can point to the birth rate chart in my previous link. Birth rates in the U.S. went down significantly from 1920 to 1940. Immigration was at a low for this entire period. The 1920s were boom years, the 1930s were Depression years.

Birth rates shot up after the war due to pent up demand and prosperity, but peaked in 1957. After that they dropped precipitously throughout the 60s and then have held steady for almost 40 years.

Your rants do not correlate to any of this reality.

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**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/immigration-and-the-economy-and-japan/559394/22 "2010-11-07T03:18:33Z")

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> [@TokyoPlayer](#):
>
> Most expects cite other reasons, including the acute shortage of child care, which would allow for two incomes in a family.
> 
> The waiting list at the day care we use is over 180 with only 15 new kids per year.

That’s true - the lack of day care facilities is a problem. But I’m not sure that’s a factor that people take into consideration before deciding to procreate. Did you?  
We certainly don’t - we’re on the IVF program now (both in our early 40s) and expect that we can rely on our parents to help out with day care so that we can both keep working. But if we can’t then one of us will stop working and we’ll take the economic hit for the sake of a child. Most people I know feel pretty much the same way.

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