Suchergebnisse

Immigrating to Japan -- Migration channels and the shaping of immigrant ethno-scapes -- Working in Japan -- Weaving the web of a life in Japan -- To leave, to return -- Home and belonging in an ethno-nationalist society -- Children of immigrants : education mobilities -- The identity journeys.

Fuji Dongying : a century of Chinese student migration to Japan -- Parting at the starting point : visa overstaying as social process -- Laboring to learn : student migrant life in Japan -- Careers in Japan's transnational economy -- Global economies from below : migrants' transnational entrepreneurship -- Lives spanned across borders

Japan welcomes highly educated migrants, but do these migrants stay on in Japan? Drawing on a web survey of 600 immigrant employees working in Japan, this paper evaluates different factors influencing migrants' stay and leave intentions. The results indicate that economic and employment-related reasons have limited impact on migrants' stay intentions. Nationalities also predict migrants' varied willingness to stay in Japan, indicating the blurring boundary between economic and cultural logics of migration. Among all factors, marrying locals provides the strongest incentive to stay, demonstrating again that affective and social ties exercise the most power in anchoring the migrants.

Immigration policy makers tend to have preexisting notions about categories such as "international" students and "skilled" or "unskilled" migrants. They often design and implement immigration policies according to the observable labor shortage at any given time. There are two caveats in this approach. First, these common-sense categories adopted in immigration policy making are in reality highly ambiguous concepts. Such ambiguity leads to unintended policy consequences. Second, migration trends evolve in an interaction between individual migrant characteristics and socio-institutional contexts; it is impossible for national policies to dictate the outcomes of migration. Increasingly globalized and market-driven economic processes render it futile or even counterproductive for national governments to control who they want and who they do not want. This paper uses the migration outcomes of Chinese migrants in Japan to substantiate these arguments. First, it shows the diversity of international students as a category of migrants as well as the blurred boundary between skilled and unskilled labor. It describes the context specific nature of "skills" and the development of real skills from "unskilled" labor. Second, the economic and social practices of Chinese migrants in Japan, through their niche occupations in Japanese firms' transnational business, their entrepreneurship, and their cross-border living arrangements all indicate that immigrants, skilled or not, contribute to the Japanese economy and Japanese sociocultural life in ways that are not foreseen or prescribed in immigration policies.

AbstractLabelled as the third wave of migration out of post-reform China, the recent emigration of wealthy Chinese has attracted worldwide attention. Although this form of mobility involves primarily the richest 0.1 per cent of the Chinese population, the high profile of the people who move and the amount of wealth implied have made it a sensational social phenomenon. Through interviews, participant observation and media reports, this paper searches for the social meanings of this trend of emigration. Journalists generally attribute the exodus of the rich to a desire to secure their wealth, an aspiration for a different education for their children, or concerns with air pollution and food safety. What this paper argues is that underneath these stated motivations, emigration is in fact a form of class-based consumption, a strategy for class reproduction, and a way to convert economic resources into social status and prestige. "Emigration" (yimin), a form of mobility that may not entail settling abroad, is a path created by wealthy Chinese striving to be among the global elite.

Labelled as the third wave of migration out of post-reform China, the recent emigration of wealthy Chinese has attracted worldwide attention. Although this form of mobility involves primarily the richest 0.1 per cent of the Chinese population, the high profile of the people who move and the amount of wealth implied have made it a sensational social phenomenon. Through interviews, participant observation and media reports, this paper searches for the social meanings of this trend of emigration. Journalists generally attribute the exodus of the rich to a desire to secure their wealth, an aspiration for a different education for their children, or concerns with air pollution and food safety. What this paper argues is that underneath these stated motivations, emigration is in fact a form of class-based consumption, a strategy for class reproduction, and a way to convert economic resources into social status and prestige. "Emigration" (yimin), a form of mobility that may not entail settling abroad, is a path created by wealthy Chinese striving to be among the global elite. (China Q/GIGA)

Since the late-1970s, millions of Chinese have arrived in Japan as students, workers, family members, long-term residents, and undocumented migrant workers. Hundreds of thousands of them have chosen to settle in this country. This paper introduces the major patterns of contemporary migration from China to Japan and describes some characteristics of Chinese migrants, highlighting the transnationality of their socioeconomic practices and settlement orientation. It also discusses the impact of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake on the Chinese community, pointing out that migration decision-making takes into account a complex set of contextual factors. Natural disasters might only be a small part of the causal reasons or a catalyst at best. On the other hand, the shared disaster experience might be an opportunity for migrants to participate in societal building and cultivate a sense of belonging.

Immigration policy makers tend to have preexisting notions about categories such as "international students" and "skilled" or "unskilled" migrants. They often design and implement immigration policies according to the observable labor shortage at any given time. There are two caveats in this approach. First, these common-sense categories adopted in immigration policy making are in reality highly ambiguous concepts. Such ambiguity leads to unintended policy consequences. Second, migration trends evolve in an interaction between individual migrant characteristics and socio-institutional contexts; it is impossible for national policies to dictate the outcomes of migration. Increasingly globalized and market-driven economic processes render it futile or even counterproductive for national governments to control who they want and who they do not want. This paper uses the migration outcomes of Chinese migrants in Japan to substantiate these arguments. First, it shows the diversity of international students as a category of migrants as well as the blurred boundary between skilled and unskilled labor. It describes the context-specific nature of "skills" and the development of real skills from "unskilled" labor. Second, the economic and social practices of Chinese migrants in Japan, through their niche occupations in Japanese firms' transnational business, their entrepreneurship, and their cross-border living arrangements all indicate that immigrants, skilled or not, contribute to the Japanese economy and Japanese sociocultural life in ways that are not foreseen or prescribed in immigration policies. (Asien/GIGA)

International education is an important channel of labor migration. Most commonly, this form of labor migration is considered as "brain drain," represented by the retention of graduate students in science and engineering in the host labor market. This case study of contemporary Chinese student migration to Japan shows that international students have different credentials, interests, and motivations for migrating abroad, and consequently provide the host society both unskilled and skilled labor power. Moreover, Chinese students' labor market practices as skilled labor migrants show their important roles in the economic globalization. Aside from scientific and engineering skills, Chinese students use their linguistic and cultural competencies to act as intermediaries between their host and home economies.