Critique on this year's stats

The stats indicate that the Japanese population is increasing by 10% per year for the past 2 years. The growth in population is mostly taking place in the visiting scholars / postdocs sector. Now they have become about a half of the total. There has been indications that this is growing even more rapidly than shown on the stats (see below).

As for Departments, the aggregate of three medical research institute came on top. This reflects the increase of postdoc researchers mentioned above. MRC alone has 11. Maybe it is no longer appropriate to aggregate these three together. As for single department, the Judge Institute has the most number of Japanese. To a certain extent, it may be abosorbing the number of those in the past may have gone to Economics / Land Economy. As for the ratio of natural /social /humanities, probably there is a slight increase in natural sciences (due to increase in postdocs), which has been the tendency since 98.

In the Colleges front, Lucy Cavendish joined Peterhouse as colleges with no Japanese members. The general tendency remains the same, with Wolfson having the most number of Japanese for the second year running.

Discussion on the reliablity of the stats

Intro

In Cambridge, most of the Japanese residents are affiliated to the University. There is not much employment opportunities for Japanese elsewhere: there is no presence of a major Japanese corporation here. Despite this, there are several Japanese societies in Cambridge, and it is very difficult to grasp the total number. HI claims that there are 500 Japanese residents in Cambridge, while there are doubts that my estimate of 290 is an over-estimate, voices are heard that "there aren't so many Japanese in my college as shown on the table".

Definition

My estimates include members of corporate research institutes (falls under "others" in the status table). Also include spouses that may be college members.

Theory

It is likely that my stats overestimate the number of those that are enrolled in degree courses. There are a significant number of registered PhD students that are not resident. Either working outside or finished/quitted but still registered. There are some MPhils who have been offered places, but never turned up.

On the other hand my stats may be underestimating the number of Visiting scholars and Postdoc researchers. There is no blanket way of detecting people in these categories.

Case studies

The table shows that Queens' had 5 Japanese in 1998, but a member testified that there were only 2 at that time. 2 didn't take up the place (of which 1 is known to have chosen a course in Oxford), 1 already finished PhD but still registered.

St Edmund's had 9 on register this year, but I have elimintated the one who didn't take up the place and another finished but still registered. And then added three visiting scholars not registered by the university (I haven't met them, and they aren't on the university email directory either) - therefore 10. There are 2 working outside Cambridge. This leaves us with 8. In the case of St Edmund's there is not much difference between the number from external data and local source.

Discussion

The overestimate factor of 250% in the case of Queens' may be a peculiar case. St Edmund's didn't have much difference. Let's take a wild assumtion of 150% overestimation for college affiliates. Out of the total 290, about 180 are affiliated to a college. This means that the real number may be nearer to 110+180*2/3=230.

As for the claim of 500 Japanese residents in Cambridge, most probably this number includes spouses and children. Many visiting scholars come with their family, but less Postdocs and very seldom students. Assume half of the visiting scholars and postdocs (60) are with their families, and there is one child per family on average (3 persons per family). This will increase the number of Japanese by 120 (total 350), but still pretty much short of the claimed 500. This implies that I am counting short of up to 60 Visiting scholars / Postdocs / Corporate researchers.

Another factor that can be considered is that there are language schools students, and during the summer vacations there are hundereds from of them from Japan. Some stay for just two weeks, some stay on for more than a year. It may be reasonable to count long term language students as Japanese residents in Cambridge, but I don't have a clue about this. Probably HI's estimate includes this as well, ie my shortfall in counting visiting scholars and postdocs is to a slightly lesser degree than shown above.

Conclusion

Further research is needed to determine the number of Japanese residents in Cambridge. If both HI's and my estimates are reasonable, then it indicates that less than 1/3 of the Japanese population in Cambridge are students.