Scholars argue that institutional arrangements shape migrants’ economic integration trajectories, and yet few studies empirically substantiate this. This study identifies employment institutions in Japan that affect skilled foreign workers. We demonstrate that practices ostensibly introduced to benefit these workers are associated with lower pay, after adjusting for human capital and firm characteristics. High levels of gender inequality also severely disadvantage female skilled migrants. These findings demonstrate that in the Japanese case, detrimental employment institutions often cancel out skilled foreign workers’ returns to human capital. The results may explain why Japan has failed to attract and retain more skilled migrants.

In contrast to earlier waves of immigration, the post–1965 Asian immigration to the United States has not spawned an exclusionist backlash among native whites. Rather, the new Asian immigrants and their children are rapidly gaining access to the American mainstream. Whether in integrated residential communities, in colleges and universities, or in mainstream workplaces, Asian Americans' presence is ever more the rule, not the exception. The success of so many Asian American immigrants suggests that race may not be as decisive a factor in shaping socioeconomic attainment as it was in the American past; civil rights reform has been incorporated in a more inclusive American mainstream. As a group in which those of legal status predominate, Asian Americans have enjoyed more open access to mainstream institutions, paving the way to their rapid assimilation.

As labor markets become increasingly global, competition among industrialized nations to attract highly skilled workers from abroad has intensified. Spurred by concerns over future economic needs caused by the demo-

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Recent studies have shown that providing job search assistance to job seekers who violate labor market norms can be costly. Consequently, people with information about jobs are less willing to help deviant job seekers. This implies that job seekers' conformity to labor market norms should be useful in predicting receipt of job search assistance. The author tests this claim using data from Japan and finds evidence that deviant job seekers receive less assistance. The findings demonstrate the importance of social norms in understanding assistance flows and illustrate the limits of network analysis in explaining access to job search assistance.