AbstrAct
The objective of this article is to explore recent trends in migration and related policies, based upon empirical data and case studies from demographic, economic, social as well as labour market perspectives.
The main findings of this article are:
1) there are still strong factors attracting migrants who encounter growing labour mar-kets mismatches at the local level; while 2) there are also factors which encourage migrants to leave the country, such as rapid economic development of neighbouring emerging economies as well as the traditional employment management policy of favouring people who prefer long-term employment.
3) According to some analyses of local labour markets, the density of migrants’ popula-tion is high not only in large cities, but also in small and medium-sized cities with industrial agglomeration as well as rural areas with continuous outflows of younger people. Japanese workers and migrant workers are more or less complementary to each other in several ways.
4) A survey by the “Alliance of Cities with High Density of Foreign Population” showed that language proficiency has a high correlation with stability and remuneration of migrants’
employment. However, local initiatives alone cannot provide enough incentives for migrants to continue learning the Japanese language.
The policy slogan to create “multicultural coexistence” in Japan is a grass-rooted con-cept based on local realities. It is necessary to establish institutional infrastructures at the national level to enable consistency between immigration policy and integration policy as well as close collaboration of policies between local and national levels. The main targets are a) institutionalization of language standards, qualification of teaching staffs and legal incentives for migrants to learn Japanese language, b) reinforcement of active labour market policies for migrants together with policies for housing, social security and welfare as safety nets, c) strengthening of education for children who are lacking Japanese language skills and encouragement for them to pursue higher education.
Migration and Integration
The recent amendment of the Immigration Control Act and Basic Population Register Act, which came into force in July 2012, provides a basis for guaranteeing rights and fulfill-ing obligations to migrants at local levels. This can be regarded as a first step towards the realization of a more comprehensive and effective migration policy in the near future.
1. introduction
The objective of this article is to explore recent trends in migration and related policies, namely, 1) recent migration trends of Japanese and foreign population flows and their back-grounds, 2) immigration flows of foreigners and their requirements, 3) relationship between migrants and locals using statistical data, 4) recent labour migration trends in Japan using lo-cal data under the complex disasters, 5) measures taken by the central and lolo-cal governments to integrate migrants economically and socially in Japan and 6) future prospects for migra-tion and migramigra-tion policies. Specifically, we are going to analyze related data and discuss such subjects in the following way:
First, we will try to discuss the macro-economic and labour market environment of in-ternational migration in and around Japan (Chapter 2). Second, we will describe the inflows and stocks of foreign nationals and the requirements of the Immigration Control and the Refugee Recognition Act (Chapter 3). Third, we will make an overview of the development of the labour market and foreign workers and their location, as well as their mobility (Chapter 4). Fourth, we will statistically show the recent demographic change of the Japanese and its relation to foreign population (Chapter 5). Fifth, we will focus on the present stage of the social integration of foreigners with the newest data from the Alliance of Cities with High Density of Foreign Citizens (Chapter 6). Finally, we would like to summarize the discussion and main findings, followed by recommendation.
2. chAngEs in MigrAtion oF JApAnEsE or ForEign nAtionAls And thEir bAckgrounds
Japan has entered the phase of declining population since 2005. The demographic factor may be one of the important factors which may explain the recent development of international migration.
However, the Japanese population increased in 2006, 2007 and 2009 because of positive net immigration of Japanese nationals. In addition, the positive net immigration of foreign nationals also compensated for such declines from 2005 to 2008. In this period, the Japanese economy has been expanding and domestic employment has been recovering (Table 1) (Iguchi 2012e).
In September 2008, the world economic crisis broke out and manufacturing and finan-cial sectors were the hardest hit. The net immigration of foreign nationals started to shrink.
In March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake happened. After the earthquake, 530,000 foreigners left Japan within a month. But, they gradually returned as the situation of the nuclear plants stabilized. As a result, the registered foreign population declined slightly
Recent Migration Trends and Policies in Japan
(from 2.09 million in March to 2.07 million in December 2011). This year, the decline of the Japanese population has reached 200,000 and that of foreign nationals 5,000, which is the largest population decline after World War II.
These changes varied according to nationalities: the largest decline in percentage was Brazilians, followed by Koreans, while the Chinese and Filipinos showed no substantial changes in population.
table 1: Development of Population in Japan (Unit: thousand, %)
Total Population Japanese Foreigner
2005 127769 -19 -0.01 126205 -61 -0.05 1564 42 2.7
2006 127901 133 0.10 126286 81 0.06 1615 51 3.2
2007 128033 132 0.10 126347 62 0.05 1686 71 4.2
2008 128081 51 0.04 126340 -81 -0.01 1741 55 3.2
2009 128032 -52 -0.04 126343 4 0.00 1689 -52 -3.0
2010 128057 26 0.02 126382 38 0.03 1675 -14 -0.9
2011 127799 -259 -0.20 126180 -202 -0.06 1619 -56 -3.5 source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (Estimates based on population census)
Aside from factors such as the economic crisis and the complex disasters, we would like to examine the factors that may explain the in- and outflow of foreign nationals as well as Japanese. They consist of long-term factors which might influence migration (either push factors or pull factors).
First, deflation has occurred in Japan since the middle of the 1990s, while there is a trend of inflation in the global economy with the rapidly growing demands from emerging econo-mies. The global inflation trend is primarily caused by soaring prices of energy, raw materials and food as a result of increasing demands from emerging economies, especially China and India, along with the background of abundant speculative money in the financial sector as a result of the quantitative easing of several developed countries with the debt crisis.
Following the collapse of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 1990s, accumula-tion of non-performing loans and contracaccumula-tion of bank credit have resulted in low investment and slow economic growth as well as deflation since the middle of the 1990s.
Even after overcoming the financial crisis through legislations in 1998, the deflation gaps at macro-level have continued irrespective of enormous expenditures by the government and quantitative easing by the Bank of Japan in order to stimulate the economy.
One serious effect of deflation on the labour market is strong pressure to squeeze labour cost at enterprises. When we look at the domestic labour market, enterprises have to continu-ously reduce labour costs not only by reducing the remuneration for regular employees, but also by replacing regular employees with employees on contracts. This has led to growing and diversifying mismatches in the local labour markets, as many unemployed cannot find
Migration and Integration
regular jobs and vacancies for technicians cannot be filled by a shrinking younger population who want to go to universities.
In addition, there are growing numbers of inactive persons who are still young but dis-couraged from working. As a result, an increasing number of long-term unemployed are now dependent upon social assistances.
Second, Japanese employment systems function under the condition of low labour turn-over, which in most Asian countries is much higher than in Japan. Many Asian talents seek faster evaluation, selection and promotion within a few years. In contrast, Japanese companies have long-term evaluation systems and do not have fast tracks for employees who are evalu-ated as possessing high potential. For a long time, even large Japanese companies thought that there would not be so many job-changers, and there are no specific measures in their personnel policies for handling such a situation.
In Asian companies growing rapidly, several measures are taken to prevent unexpected labour turnover and to assure the retention of essential personnel within the company. They implemented several reforms of their personnel policies following recommendations by American or European consulting firms on personnel policy.
Perhaps in twenty or thirty years’ time, the mobility of the labour market in Asia will be substantially lower than today and many people will seek stable and long-term employment, under developed social security systems.
As a consequence, there are two contrasting outcomes already evident in Japan. One outcome is the inflow of migrant workers into the local labour markets in order to fill the gap caused by the mismatches between demand and supply at the local level in Japan.
Another outcome is the outflow of migrant workers, especially those with high potential already employed by Japanese enterprises. They are inclined to quit the company in a few years and even leave Japan to work abroad. The main reason might be that Japanese compa-nies cannot concentrate human capital investment on employees with high potential (Iguchi 2012 d).
In addition, Japanese engineers, especially in the electronics industry, have changed jobs and been hired by Korean or Chinese firms, which offer much higher remuneration and bet-ter working conditions. It has resulted in a growing outflow of Japanese engineers, with some
“technology drain”, from Japanese firms to their competing firms in Asia.
Now, we can classify several factors influencing international migration of both Japanese and foreign nationals (Table 2).
Recent Migration Trends and Policies in Japan
table 2: Changing environment and factors affecting international migration in and around Japan
Environment Main factors Direction Reasons of inflows or
outflows Examples
3. chAnging MigrAtion And rEQuirEMEnts oF iMMigrAtion
We now look at inflow of foreign nationals, taking into consideration the requirements set by the Immigration and Refugee recognition Act.
In the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, Article 1 stipulates the sole objective of the Act. It is “fair control of immigration and emigration”. There are no such objectives as protection of migrants, guarantee of rights and obligations or social integration of migrants.
Article 2-2 of the Act stipulates two different types of migrants by the Annex Table I and the Annex Table II. Annex Table I defines “statues of residence” for the purpose of “activities”
performed by foreigners. They are “Diplomat”, “Official”, “Professor”, “Religious activities”,
“Journalist”, “Investor /Business manager”, “Legal /Accounting services”, “Medical Services”,
“Researcher”, “Instructor”, “Engineer”, “Specialist in humanities/International Service”,
“Intra-corporate-transferee”, “Entertainer”, “Skilled Worker”, “Technical Intern Training”
(1-I, 1-RO, 2-I,and 2-RO), (these 15 statuses are for working purposes), as well as “Cultural activities”, “Temporary visitor”, “Students”, “Trainee”, “Dependent” and “Designated activi-ties” (these 5 statuses are for other purposes than working) (Table 3).
Migration and Integration
table 3: new entry of foreigners according to status of residence
Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Religious activities 985 828 771 713 737
Journalist 119 226 170 136 59
Investor /Business
manager 918 919 857 896 838
legal /Accounting
International service 7,426 5,690 4,167 4,113 4,658
Intra-company
transferee 7,170 7,307 5,245 5,826 5,348
Entertainer 38,855 34,994 31,170 28,612 26,112
skilled labor 5.315 6,799 5,384 3,588 4,178
Technical Intern
Cultural activities 3,454 3,378 3,557 3,159 2,729
Temporary visitor 7,384,510 7,367,277 5,822,719 7,632,536 5,180,962
student 47,939 59,116 66,149 63,478 49,936
Trainee 102,018 101,879 80,480 51,725 16,079
Dependent 20,268 22,167 20,540 19,486 18,165
Designated activities 8,009 8,413 9,863 11,972 12,954
status according to social position
spouse or child of
Japanese national 24,421 19,975 14,951 11,452 10,766 spouse and child of
permanent resident 1,710 1,964 1,684 1,068 1,392
long-term resident 27,326 20,123 9,946 8,178 7,811
Temporary asylum 4 0 0 0 0
source: Ministry of Justice
Recent Migration Trends and Policies in Japan
Annex Table II stipulates status of residences according to social positions. They are “Spouse or Child of a Japanese national”, “Long-term resident”, “Spouse and children of permanent resident”, or “Temporary visitor” (See Table 3).
In addition, there is the status of “Permanent resident” in Annex Table II, which can be issued to foreigners who have stayed in Japan for at least ten years in principle, with the condition that he or she is of good conduct and can sustain his or her livelihood. In the case of a spouse of a Japanese, permanent resident status can be issued when he or she has been staying in Japan for less than five years.
Article 5 stipulates the reasons for rejecting the application for landing, which include drug abuse or danger for social order etc.
Article 7 stipulates the ordinance by Ministry of Justice on the activities of 14 sta-tuses of residence: “Investor /Business manager”, “Legal /Accounting services”, “Medical Services”, “Researcher”, “Instructor”, “Engineer”, “Specialist in humanities/International Service”, “Intra-corporate-transferee”, “Entertainer”, “Skilled Worker”, “Student”. “Trainee”,
“Dependent” and “Technical Intern Training” (1-I, 1-RO, 2-I,and 2-RO). This ordinance should be decided after consultation with Ministries Agencies concerned.
The scope of accepting foreign workers are limited to foreigners with technology and knowledge or those with special skills, according to Annex Table I, while those foreigners with status of residence according to Annex Table II are able to conduct every kind of activity including low or unskilled jobs (Table 2). (Iguchi 2012d)
Article 19 stipulates the permission for undesignated activities issued by the Immigration Bureau. Article 19-3 stipulates the “Residence Card” which should be issued by the Immigration Bureau when foreign nationals get permission for landing.
Article 19-7 stipulates that foreign nationals should present the residence card and regis-ter at municipalities according to the Inhabitant’s Registration Law. In addition, Article 19-16 stipulates that foreign nationals should report to a local immigration bureau when they have changed their workplace.
Article 19-17 stipulates the obligation for organizations which accept foreign nationals to report to the local immigration bureau, except when employers are obliged to report to Employment Service Offices according to Article 28 of Employment Countermeasures Law.
The same law stipulates that these reports should be transferred from Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare to Minister of Justice.
Article 20 states the procedures for changing status of residence. Article 21 stipulates the procedures for extending the stay with the same status of residence. These articles have guide-lines by the ministry concerning requirements for changing or extending their statuses. These guidelines contain requirements such as paying taxes or holding certificate of social insurance etc. However, a lack of requirements does not necessarily lead to deportation of the migrants.
Articles 24 and 25 mention the procedures for deportation. Article 50 stipulates special permission of stay granted by the Minister of Justice when there are humanitarian reasons.
This article also has a guideline for the permission.
Migration and Integration
The total number of new entries was 7.7 million per annum before the world economic crisis in 2008. However, the annual inflow has drastically declined to almost 5.4 million in 2011 after the rebound of new entries to 7.9 million in 2010.
Although the entries of foreign nationals have been fluctuating as a result of external or internal shocks, the stock of migrants has been relatively stable and the decline of foreign residents still remains over two million according to the registration statistics.
First, it is noteworthy that 980,000 foreign inhabitants hold permanent resident sta-tus including special permanent resident stasta-tus, which has been issued to the descendants of Koreans or Chinese who had been Japanese nationals before the end of World War II.
Nowadays, according to Article 22 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, ordinary permanent residents have outnumbered those with special permanent resident status (Table 4).
table 4: Registered foreigners according to status of residence
Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
status of residence Total 2,152,973 2,712,426 2,186,121 2,134,151 2,078,508 Permanent resident total 869,986 912,361 943,195 964,195 987,508 ordinary permanent resident 437,757 496,056 533,472 565,089 598,440 special permanent resident 430,229 420,305 409,565 399,106 389,085 Non-permanent resident total 1,282,987 1,305,065 1,243,084 1,169,965 1,090,983
student 170,590 179,827 192,668 201,511 188,605
souse and child of Japanese 256,980 245,497 221,923 196,248 181,617 long-term resident 268,604 258,498 221,771 194,602 177,983
Technical Intern Training - - - 100,008 141,994
Dependent 98,167 107,641 115,081 118,865 119,359
specialist in humanities /
International service 61,763 67,291 69,395 68,467 67,854
skilled labour 44,684 52,273 50,493 46,592 42,634
Engineer 21,261 25,863 29,030 30,142 31,751
spouse of permanent resident 15,365 17,839 19,570 20,251 21,647 Intra-company transferee 16,111 17,798 16,786 16,140 14,636 Investor / Business manager 7,916 8,895 9,840 10,908 11,778
Instructor 9.832 10,070 10,129 10,012 10,107
Trainee 88,086 86,826 65,209 9,346 3,388
others 223,628 226,747 221,189 146,867 77,631
source: Ministry of Justice
According to nationalities, China occupies 32.5% of registered foreign residents, followed by Korea, Brazil, the Philippines, Peru and the United States (Table 5).
Recent Migration Trends and Policies in Japan
table 5: Migrant stocks (registered migrant) in Japan Countries of
origin 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 %
Total 2,152,973 2,217,426 2,186,121 2,134,151 2,078,508 100.0
China 606,889 655,377 680,518 687,156 674,879 32.5
Korea 593,489 589,239 578,495 565,989 545,401 26.2
Brazil 316,967 312,582 267,456 230,552 210,032 10.1
Philippines 202,592 210,617 211,716 210,181 209,376 10.1
Peru 59,696 59,723 57,464 54,636 52,843 2.5
the Us 51,851 52,723 52,149 50,667 49,815 2.4
others 321,489 337,205 338,323 334,970 336,162 16.2
source: Ministry of Justice
4. diFFErEnt typEs oF MigrAnt lAbor And its locAtion And Mobility
The total number of foreign workers should be grasped by the reporting system of foreigners’
employment according to Article 28 of Employment Countermeasures Law. In reality, this system has become compulsory since October 2007 and it covers 686,000 foreign workers.
However, this figure may underestimate the real number,
Therefore, the author has estimated the number of foreign workers every year based on reliance on several kinds of statistics. The total number is 900,000 excluding those who have special permanent resident status (Table 6).
According to the estimate by the author, foreigners who have the status of residents for the purpose of working, except technical intern trainees, represent 22.2 percent of foreign workers. Technical intern trainees, who possess a status of “designated activities”, and stu-dents with permission for non-designated activities, amounted to almost the same number as those who have a status of residence for the purpose of working.
Foreigners of Japanese descent have traditionally been the largest group in this table. But their numbers have declined significantly since 2009 due to the world economic crisis.
The number of overstaying foreigners has substantially declined under the efforts of the Immigration Bureau to reduce overstayers by half from 2005 to 2009. This figure also reflects the issuance of a “special permission to stay” by the Minister of Justice, which may be issued in the process of deportation when there are humanitarian considerations, as indicated in the guidelines attached to Article 25 of the Immigration Control and Refugees Recognition Act.
The estimate also reflects the fact that there are new foreigners who obtain permanent resident status. Many of them come from the category of Japanese descendants. If foreigners would like to build a house in Japan and secure bank loans, it is necessary for them to apply for permanent resident status.
Migration and Integration
table 6: Development of foreign workers (excluding special permanent residents) since 1990: estimates reflecting amendment of laws in 2010 19901995200020052008200920102011 status of residence fort he purpose of working
67,983125,726154,748193,785211,535212,896
307,235 (207,227) 342,266 (200,271)
Highly skilled43,82364,67289,552193,785172,600172,900167,838162,255 Foreign workers with foreigner’s specific skills24,11023,32465,19636,99438,89439,99643,82338,016
Designated activities
3,2606,55829,749104,488121,863130,63624,10022,751 students working in non-designated activities
10,93532,36659,435104,67199,485106,588103,260104,340
Foreigners of Japanese descent 71,803193,748220,458241,325229,569202,101178,031163,795 overstayers106,497284,744233,187149,785113,07291,77878,48867,055
Non-designated activities
unknownunknownunknownunknownunknownunknownunknownunknown Working with
permanent residence status
-17,41239,154143,184160,212173,696183,990194,849
Total number of foreign work
ers
without special permanent residence status
260,000 + α
620,000 + α
750,000 + α
930,000 + α
930,000 + α
920,000 + α
940,000 + α
(860,000) + α
900,000 + α
(840,000) + α
Registered Foreigners 1,075,3171,362,3711,686,4442,159,9732,217,4262,186,1212,134,1512,078,504 Note: ( ) means an estimate according to the definition of foreign workers before Immigration Control and Refugee recognition Act have taken effect to introduce the new status of residence “Technical Intern Training” in July 2010.
Recent Migration Trends and Policies in Japan
In the labour market, the functions of foreign workers differ according to the categories.
Graphics 1-5 show that technical intern trainees, who are under the rotation system and who are not able to change their jobs, are widespread in remote areas where the youth popula-tion has declined and populapopula-tion aging is going on.
In contrast, foreign workers of Japanese descent and those with permanent resident status are mobile and concentrate in the areas with higher wages. The highly skilled foreign workers are mainly working in the areas of Tokyo, Aichi and Osaka. The locations of foreign students who are working part-time corresponds with that of universities and colleges (Graphics 1-5).
Graphic 1: Foreign workers as technical intern trainees (october 2011)
source: Made by the author in reliance upon data from the reporting system of foreigners’ employ-ment by Ministry of Health labour and Welfare.
Graphic 2: Foreign workers of Japanese descent (october 2011)
source: Made by the author in reliance upon data from the reporting system of foreigners’ employ-ment by Ministry of Health labour and Welfare.