Abstract
In Japan, one of the most significant recent topics of discussion with regard to international migration is introducing workers from Indonesia in the field of health-care services. Japan intends to accept 400 nurses and 600 nursing caregivers in the next 2 years—from fiscal 2008 onward. In order to work as health-care professionals in Japan, it is imperative that workers possess the capability of communicating in Japanese as well as medical knowledge and skills. Therefore, it is necessary for Japan to provide these foreign workers sufficient supplementary education and training after they are accepted in the country. Thereafter, it is expected that Indonesian nursing caregivers will be treated almost at par with domestic skilled workers. This new aspect of the Japanese immigration policy is the result of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Japan and Indonesia, which was concluded in 2007. Undoubtedly, the decreasing population in Japan was one of the main motives behind the EPA. Currently, although there exist a large number of illegal unskilled foreign workers in Japan and the younger generation that has failed to occupy permanent jobs, in the long term, securing a sufficient number of workers in order to maintain economic prosperity is also the one of most serious and difficult problems not only for Japan but also for a majority of the developed countries.
This paper was originally published by Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting and Economics as an article in its Vol. 17 (2010) issue.
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Notes
- 1.
In order to ensure a sufficient number of nursing caregivers, the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry of Japan intends to certify those who do not pass the national exam as “practical” nursing caregivers if they have completed related courses at colleges, universities, or vocational schools. Similar agreement has already been done between Japan and the Philippines (since 2009) and Vietnam (since 2014) as mentioned in Chap. 1.
- 2.
In Japan, there already exists a system for training unskilled foreign workers known as the Industrial Training Program (ITP). In this program, each worker from a less developed country is known as a “trainee” and is expected to obtain the necessary technological or other skills and/or knowledge; after returning to his or her country, the trainee is also expected to engage in a job that requires the learned technological and other skills. Similar training is included in the on-the-job training (OJT) program; therefore, since this has become a matter of public concern, certain Japanese companies hire ITP workers who are not trained in any technological skills or knowledge at extremely low wage rates. The case of Indonesian nursing caregivers is similar to those under the ITP, particularly in terms of the status ascribed to the caregivers who are undergoing training or education.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
It must be noted that Indonesian nursing caregivers are skilled workers because they have passed national exams or graduated from schools. However, it is also true that these workers are not considered to be skilled in Japan because of the language barrier and difference in education curriculum.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
We obtain the following results from equations from (14.9) to (14.20):
where \( C\equiv {\tau}^1T\left(1-p\right)\left(s\left({i}^2\right)-1\right)+\tilde{T}s\left({i}^2\right)\left(pT-{\tau}^1\right)>0 \),
and
Appendix 2
We obtain the following results from (14.9), (14.10), (14.11), (14.12), (14.13), (14.14), (14.15), (14.16), (14.17), (14.18), (14.19), (14.25), and (14.26):
and
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Kondoh, K. (2017). Can the Economic Partnership Agreements Help the Developed Country with a Decreasing Population?. In: The Economics of International Immigration. New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 27. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0092-8_14
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