Either Make More Babies or Embrace Foreign Workers
Asia’s economies are increasingly reliant on foreign labor as populations shrink and age. The coronavirus puts that model to the test.
Baby factories are mothballing, too.
Photographer: Jonathan Drake/Bloomberg
For Asia’s most prosperous societies, Covid-19 has exposed a big vulnerability: People simply aren’t having enough babies to replenish their aging populations. It's foreign workers that make these countries function.
That’s why pulling up the drawbridge to halt further spread of the disease and protect domestic businesses would be perilous. Even Japan and South Korea, often seen as hostile to outsiders, have been coming to terms with their reliance on employees from abroad in recent years. In Singapore, long open to immigration, foreigners make up about a third of the workforce, be they bankers, kitchen staff, bus drivers or mail handlers.
Not only is the region’s economic health at stake, but also its legacy as a big winner of globalization over the past few decades. The International Monetary Fund forecasts global gross domestic product will shrink 3% this year, easily exceeding the decline of 2009. Trade, the lifeblood of many Asian economies, will fall 11%. Growth in this engine of world commerce would sputter without immigration.