In the second half of the 1980s Japan has emerged as one of the new major destination countries for migrants from Asia. The migrant labour pool was then joined by Japanese descendants from South American countries in the 1990s. Japan's policy of keeping the labour market closed to foreign unskilled workers has remained unchanged despite the 1990 immigration policy reform, which met the growing need for unskilled labour not by opening the 'front-door' to unskilled workers but by letting them in through intentionally-provided 'side-doors'. This book throws light on various aspects of migration flows to Japan and the present status of migrant workers as conditioned by Japan's immigration control system. The analysis aims to explore how the massive arrival of migrants affected Japan's immigration policy and how the policy segmented the foreign labour market in Japan.

First Published in 1995. The issue of foreign workers in Japan has already reached a turning point, as they are quickly changing from a flow into a group of settled residents. This change has been accompanied by a great deal of research in Japan, but there have been precious few attempts to grasp the problem in a unified manner, and this book, based on the author’s own field research, represents such an attempt.

A comprehensive and timely examination of the history and current status of immigrants and refugees—their stories, the events that led to their movement, and the place of these movements in contemporary history and politics. Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present is an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the key concepts, terms, personalities, and real-world issues associated with the surge of immigration from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It focuses on the United States, but is also the first encyclopedic work on the subject that reflects a truly global perspective. With contributions from the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Immigration and Asylum offers nearly 200 entries organized around four themes: immigration and asylum; the major migrating groups around the world; expulsions and other forced population movements; and the politics of migration. In addition to basic entries, the work includes in-depth essays on important trends, events, and current conditions. There is no better resource for exploring just how profoundly the voluntary and forced movement of asylum seekers and refugees has transformed the world—and what that transformation means to us today.

The migration of workers to the high growth countries in Pacific Asia in the 1980s was a new phenomenon in these countries. As such the host governments did not have in place adequate housing, social security and legal protection, but the tight controls following the financial crisis have pushed these issues to the back burner. This volume discusses the debates and controversies surrounding this issue in Malaysia, Taiwan, SIngapore, South Korea, Japan and China.

Ist Japan auf eine multikulturelle Gesellschaft vorbereitet? Der Band untersucht die Entwicklung der japanischen Einwanderungs- und Integrationspolitik sowie der damit verbundenen Institutionen und verfolgt dabei einen disziplinübergreifenden sozialwissenschaftlichen Ansatz. Die Autor*innen beleuchten kritische Fragen und Herausforderungen, mit denen das Land aufgrund der unartikulierten Politik der der Akzeptanz von Migration seitens der Regierung konfrontiert ist, z. B. in den Bereichen Flüchtlingspolitik, multikulturelle Bildung und Katastrophenschutz. Wie kann die Situation verbessert werden? Das Buch untersucht Veränderungen und Initiativen, die notwendig sind, um ein widerstandsfähiges politisches System für ein liberales, pluralistisches und integratives Japan zu schaffen.

This book analyzes immigration policies in East Asia in the context of contemporary global migration flows and mobility. To assess how global norms of migration have impacted the East Asian migration region and explore regional migration trends, the book contains 13 case studies which investigate the regulation of immigration in China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Three analytical strands, namely, norm diffusion, identity politics, and citizenship, build the theoretical framework for the case studies which investigate how regional and national norms, discourses, and institutions affect local communities and migration patterns. In particular, the book analyzes contemporary issues such as immigration policy reforms, practices of inclusion and exclusion in local communities, and discourses on multiculturalism and risk. The book utilizes a comparative perspective which enables readers to reflect on the role of national identity, international organizations and law, public security concerns, and labour market demands in the articulation and implementation of contemporary immigration policy in East Asia. This book substantially complements the existing literature on immigration governance and interregional migration mobility in East Asia and will be of interest to academics in the fields of East Asian studies, public policy, immigration and migration studies, and comparative politics.

In our globalizing world of today, the significance, status and demand of languages are experiencing changes which are unmatched in human history. These changes also relate to the languages of Japan as well as to the way that they are being taught and studied. In this book 14 authors from four continents present their research results on Japanese as foreign language (JFL) in the age of globalization. The participation of these authors reflects the fact that research into JFL has itself become global. Since JFL in the age of globalization is a field too extensive to be comprehensively covered by a single book, we restricted ourselves to three topics which we believe are central in discussing this issue. New kinds of language learners and new teaching paradigmsNative – non-native speaker interaction or contact situations in a more general senseNew insights into cognitive processes in language learning

Ruth Achenbach develops a model of individual return migration decision making, which examines both the process and the decisive factors in return migration decision making of Chinese highly skilled workers and students in Japan. She proposes to answer a question yet insufficiently explained by migration research: why do migrants deviate from their migration intentions and return sooner or later than planned, or not at all? Her study integrates factors from the spheres of career, family and lifestyle, and redefines stages in long-term decision-making processes, thereby contributing to decision and migration theory. She analyzes migrants’ shifting priorities over the course of migration, including a perspective on life course and on the impact of the triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011.

This book explores the implications and significant ethical, social, economic and health challenges that an ageing world population presents. It provides valuable insights on concerns related to providing, organizing, planning and managing care for older persons in both formal and informal settings. As the number of older persons increases rapidly around the globe, caring for them is a very important aspect of all ageing and aged societies. While in most countries the care of older persons is provided informally by family members, the changing social scene, family structures and work and employment patterns are leading many nations to create provisions for formal care through institutions or paid services of caregivers. This book offers perspectives on formal and informal care from countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, the USA, India, South Africa and Poland, among others. The essays in this book underline a rights-based approach and focus on ethical, social, economic, health and legal aspects of care as they pertain to the universal phenomena of ageing as well as the specific demographic and epidemiological realities of the selected countries. They discuss concerns such as long-term care provisions, catering to the needs of people affected by dementia, providing residential care, taking the needs of family care providers into account, the growing requirement for paid care workers and channelizing training of both skilled and semi-skilled care providers to suit the needs of older people. This volume would be of interest to scholars and those working in the fields of sociology, health studies, age and ageing, psychology, social work, medical sciences, nursing and public policy. It will also be useful to NGO sector workers, administrators, as well as grassroots workers involved with the care of older persons.