Immigration And Emigration

Moving around
Jun 25th 2007 From Economist.com

MORE people are moving to OECD countries than ever before. ...Since the turn of the century, the rate of immigration countries has been surpassed by that of emigration countries. Booming Ireland is an exemplar of this trend.
AFP

Immigration countries: Austria, Australia, Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, United States

Emigration countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain

What caught my eye is that Japan is one of the emigration countries in the world. Most of the countries in the above list seem to be less developed than Japan. Why are the people in Japan leaving for another country though Japan is one of the most developed and affluent countries in the world?

Is Japan difficult to live in? The other day I saw a woman from Florida saying that the prices were high and rooms were small in Japan. She didn't seem to like Japan and said that she planed to go back to America the next year.

I also think that Japan isn't good to live in because the prices are higher than those in other countries. An affluent society may not be necessarily a good place to live in. It is not analytically clear, but the difficulty in living in Japan may keep some people from staying in Japan.