[vr46]

Except the Swiss are total arseholes about it, they won't even grant citizenship to people born there or who've lived there for twenty years and speak the language. Many want to cap total population at 10 million, we'll see what happens in June.

And twelve years ago, the Swiss voted to restrict EU FoM for itself and the backlash was instant.

Can't blame the government, this is the Swiss voting public doing their best to be dickheads.

Japan is a bunch of islands, yes it's pretty closed, but Switzerland is a land-locked village with fewer people than London and entirely dependent on trade and the movement of people and money for all they have, and barely a scrap of a language to call its own. English is super common there, probably as a way of democratically inconveniencing everyone.

[FabCH]

No country in Europe automatically grants citizenship just because you were born there. That’s a US thing. The closest are places like France where you can get it at 18 if you were born in France and meet a few more criteria.

And because Switzerland has mandatory military service, a lot of men born in Switzerland don’t _want_ to naturalize, especially those with EU passports.

Switzerland isn’t really that much different from other EU countries when it comes to citizenship, except for the 10 year requirement. That one is on the high side.

But for some reason it gets a lot of press as a particularly difficult country to naturalize in.

[triceratops]

> [Jus soli]'s a US thing

More accurately it's a New World thing. Almost all (30 out of 35) of the countries that have jus soli are North or South American. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

[avadodin]

> lived there for twenty years and speak the language

Which one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland

[kakacik]

This is completely untrue, right after obtaining C permit, you can apply for citizenship since its also 10 year residency requirement. Language requirement is lowest in countries I know, written test is a joke, blindly I did it online and it was above 90% without preparing at all, threshold is around 70% IIRC. Rarely there is committee after that, most people around got it after passing test.

Of course if you have active criminal record no point doing that. If you keep going away for 6+ months often it gets reset. If you have obviously lied on your tax return thats an issue too.

I know this intimately since right now going through this proces. One american colleague is doing the same. Right now, its much easier than ie in France.

[hollerith]

>Switzerland is a land-locked village with fewer people than <one of the biggest cities in Europe> and entirely dependent on trade and the movement of people and money for all they have, and barely a scrap of a language to call its own.

Everything in that quote has been always been true though, and my guess is that they never allowed significant numbers of migrants at any time from about 800 (i.e., after the end of migration period) until whenever they started letting in large numbers of immigrants (some time after 1990 probably) (but not large enough numbers to suit you, I gather).

[TitaRusell]

Who cares about citizenship? I know Japanese expats. They don't speak Dutch and they keep their Japanese passport. They just get a permanent residence and everyone is happy.

We all know that there are two groups of foreigners: people from first world countries and the rest.

Ofcourse the Netherlands constitution says that you have to treat everyone equally but that's just hippie talk.

[workfromspace]

Are you sure about the Dutch part? AFAIK in almost all EU countries you have to have at least B1 language for permanent residency.

[Mainan_Tagonist]

Such dickheads the Swiss voting public, how dare they exercise a direct democracy?! So inconveniencing!

[rayiner]

Yeah, do they think they have a country or something? Don’t they know they’re just an economic zone between France, Italy, and Germany.

[nslsm]

It looks like they are proud of their country and want to keep it as is. They’ve seen what limitless immigration did to other countries and want none of it. Respect to them.

[GuB-42]

Switzerland has a fertility rate of about 1.4 and decreasing, unless they do something, there won't be much of a country left in a few generations. Solutions can involve immigration or natalism, but something has to change.

Japan is worse.

[dublinstats]

Or significantly increasing life-expectancy. Or new fertility technologies. A few generations is a long time.

The birth rates of the immigrant waves would presumably just plummet quickly anyway as they join the culture. Since that seems to have happened with all our other health problems.

[rayiner]

I don’t know anything about Switzerland, but immigration isn’t a solution to the prospect of Japan “not having a country left in a few generations.” There might be more or fewer people living on the islands, but “Japan” will be gone either way.

[felipeerias]

Nowadays Japan’s fertility rate is higher than most of its neighbours. We are just used to pick it as an example because it started aging earlier than most other countries.

Japanese population is still over 120 million. Forecasts put it falling below 100 million at some point in the second half of this century.

Things will have to change in order to keep population stable in the long term, but the Japanese approach seems IMHO more sensible than that of other countries.

Cohesive democratic societies are fragile.

[Starman_Jones]

I can’t parse this statement. I’m not sure if this about culture changes or about climate threat.

[platinumrad]

How do you define "Japan"?

[rayiner]

The standard way. The same way you define “Thailand” or “Bangladesh” or “Vietnam?”

[platinumrad]

It seems like "Japan" will very much still exist in either of your scenarios then.

[throwawaypath]

The nation state located on the islands of Japan populated with almost exclusively Japanese people.

[platinumrad]

Good news then: it's still going to be there in a hundred years!

[red-iron-pine]

they're islands mon ami, it's not hard to define them -- the borders are fairly straightforward

you can piddle around about a few tiny islands elsewhere, e.g. okinawa, but the main islands are undisputedly "japan"

[platinumrad]

Sounds like it will still exist then, barring climate catastrophe.

[LAC-Tech]

A lot of people would rather live in their own aged society than a slightly younger foreign one.

Emphasis on slightly younger. Fertility is declining basically everywhere. Much of the developing world is now below replacement including India and China.

[fzeroracer]

'A lot of people' usually means the predominately older strata of society. Japan has been having issues with the younger generation being locked out of employment and advancement because of older generations needing to hold onto their career with a death grip and retirement ages going up.

The aged society scam can only persist as long as they can exploit the younger generation. When that collapses, the end result is either going to be leaving the elderly to die or things start collapsing in new and interesting ways

The only reason why people 'prefer' this is for the same reason 'prefer' to believe climate change doesn't exist. Eventually reality catches up.

[LAC-Tech]

You've completely missed my point.

Immigration is not a long term solution to an aged society. The societies of target countries are aging as well and not far behind.

What you advocate is to bolster the work force of a country with a fertility rate of ~1 and falling, with people from a place with a fertility rate of ~2 and falling.

[nslsm]

The solution to a low fertility rate is to… destroy the country? What’s the difference?

[slaw]

Africa has fertility rate 4.02 in 2025. Do you want Switzerland look like Africa?

[Thorrez]

There are numbers in between 1.4 and 4.02. There's no reason Switzerland would need to swing to the complete opposite end.

[LAC-Tech]

Africas fertility rate is declining massively as well.

[slaw]

Yes, by 2091 Africas fertility rate should be 2.1

[kakacik]

This is the correct reality. If there would be public vote in surrounding countries, ie mosques would be banned there too (btw those standing and having permit before the vote keep functioning).

But none of the german, french, italian etc politicians have the balls to let society decide for themselves, controversial topic or not. And people then wonder why in extremely left-leaning country like France there is high popularity for extreme right parties.

Maybe british with their one self-kneecaping brexit vote cured them, but public voting in general was never on the table.

Swiss are the most free nation globally. At least I havent hears of any on similar level. They vote responsibly, heck they have 3x the amount of immigrants per capita then next top country in Europe, but they want only people who can find work there, plus they host tons of refugees. And yes they dont want to lose their unique identity, they have enough examples around them to be wary and smart. I'd say they do their share and some more

[socalgal2]

> Except the Swiss are total arseholes about it, they won't even grant citizenship to people born there or who've lived there for twenty years and speak the language.

Japan has those issues as well, look up Zainichi Koreans

[decimalenough]

These days Zainichi Koreans are granted citizenship pretty much automatically if they request it. But some choose not to, mostly because they prefer to retain Korean citizenship instead (Japan does not allow dual citizenship).

Yes, previously they were forced to choose Japanese names to naturalize, but this has not been the case for a long time.