Survey shows Japanese have harsh views toward refugees

Japanese have a much harsher view of refugees than citizens in other countries and have done the least individually to help people who have fled their homelands, an international survey showed.

Ipsos, a market research company headquartered in Paris, released the results of its survey of 23,000 people from 29 countries on June 20, which is World Refugee Day.

In one question in the survey, respondents were asked if they agree or disagree with the statement, “Most refugees who come to my country will successfully integrate into their new society.”

An average of 40 percent of all respondents agreed with the statement.

However, the rate was only 17 percent for Japanese, the lowest among the 29 countries.

For the statement, “Refugees make a positive contribution to my country,” 20 percent of Japanese agreed, the second-lowest percentage in the category, following Hungary’s rate.

The overall average was 40 percent.

The survey showed that on average, 62 percent of all respondents agreed that “wealthier nations have a moral responsibility to provide financial support to refugees.”

Japan had the lowest agreement rate for this statement, at 43 percent.

The survey also asked respondents if they have done anything in the past 12 months to help refugees, such as providing donations or volunteering.

Japan had the highest rate of “nothing,” at 92 percent, followed by Hungary and South Korea, both at 80 percent.

However, responses to other statements that took a hard line against refugees showed that Japanese do not necessarily reject the idea of accepting them into their country.

The survey offered these two statements: “We must close our borders to refugees entirely–we can’t accept any at this time” and “Most foreigners who want to get into my country as a refugee really aren’t refugees.”

The percentage of Japanese who agreed with these statements was below the overall average in the survey.

There were 42.7 million refugees worldwide as of the end of 2024, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).