(Replying to PARENT post)
This. I've been in Japan for 15 years, and have permanent residency. Citizenship would basically only grant me the right to vote for (or against, I guess) the party that has been in power almost uninterrupted since the 50s. In exchange for that, I would have to give up 3 other citizenships. Not a great deal...
(Replying to PARENT post)
There are like 50K Indians in Japan, mostly Tokyo. This is a surprisingly low number. Sure there is the language barrier but that barrier holds true for Germany also which has a lot more Indians.
My hunch is education - Japan does not have too many universities to attract young talent, as compared to Germany, Australia or the UK. I'm not sure if this is by design or if there are some other factors at play.
If Japan built a lot more universities and made it easier and relatively affordable for foreign students to sign up with English classes etc, perhaps there will be a lot more immigrants from countries such as India, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.
(Replying to PARENT post)
(Replying to PARENT post)
1. N3 isn’t that easy. You need to learn 600 kanji, plus reading and grammar. It takes over 1000 hours of focused study [1]. It’s a stretch to call it “basic” or “very easy”.
2. There’s no double taxation for US citizens living in Japan, thanks to the foreign tax credit [2].
[1] https://cotoacademy.com/study-hours-needed-pass-jlpt-compari...
[2] https://brighttax.com/blog/the-american-foreign-tax-credit-e...
(Replying to PARENT post)
The reason so few people acquire Japanese citizenship is not because of the difficulty doing so, but because it offers little in terms of tangible benefits beyond those already acquired by virtue of having permanent residency status.
1) Citizenship is needed in order to vote. Important for the health of any democracy; but in a country where it seems to be LDP all day every day anyway, immigrants can hardly be faulted much for not placing much value on this aspect.
2) For Americans, Japanese citizenship allows them to revoke their American citizenship, in order to avoid double taxation. (Not an issue for other nationalities, where the ludicrous concept of double taxation doesn't apply.)
That's about it as far as I can think of. Add to that the fact that Japan doesn't recognize dual citizenship, it's no surprise most immigrants are satisfied to just stick with permanent residency.
Note that the bar for permanent residency has been lowered in recent years, making it more easily attainable than an equivalent status in most other industrial nations.