Negative Assimilation: How Immigrants Experience Economic Mobility in Japan

Abstract

This paper examines the economic mobility of foreign migrants in Japan. In a country that is largely regarded as homogeneous and closed to outsiders, how and to what extent do immigrants achieve economic success? A survey conducted by the authors revealed that the conventional assimilationist perspective does not fully explain immigrants’ economic success in Japan. Migrants from the West experience what Chiswick and Miller () refer to as “negative assimilation.” That is, their earnings decline over time in Japan. While negative assimilation was not clearly observed among immigrants from neighboring Asian countries, wages among them did not increase with the length of their stay in Japan. For both groups, the skills they brought from abroad were found to be largely accountable for their economic success, while locally specific human capital, such as education acquired in the host society, did not contribute to their earnings.

Are the Consequences of Experiencing Discrimination the same for Immigrants of Differing Socio‐Economic Status in Japan?

“…Random sampling is a key factor in collecting reliable data (Fowler, ). However, in Japan, immigrants’ names and addresses were not accessible from the government until recently; thus, it is difficult to create a random sample of immigrants (Takenaka et al., ). Therefore, I used Takenaka et al.…”

“…This survey is based on respondents to and customers of research companies. To ensure a representative sample, the researchers asked two survey companies that specialized in immigrant communities in Japan to conduct the survey (Takenaka et al., ). All the immigrants included in the dataset were first‐generation immigrants who lived in metropolitan areas in Kanto and Kansai, such as Tokyo and Osaka, and came to Japan after 1989.…”

“…However, despite Japan's immigration policy, its retention rates for skilled immigrants are extremely low compared with those of other countries (Tsukazaki, ). Previous studies have mainly explored the reasons for these low rates by studying factors such as the downward mobility of skilled immigrants and the institutional barriers that inhibit the human or social capital of these immigrants from being translated into income (Holbrow and Nagayoshi, ; Takenaka et al., ). The findings of the present study imply that the lack of anti‐discrimination legislation in Japan, which probably contributes to the emotional deprivation of skilled immigrants relative to their pre‐immigration experience with discrimination, may also influence their decision to leave or remain in Japan.…”

Comparing the Experiences of Highly Skilled Labor Migrants in Sweden and Japan: Barriers and Doors to Long‐term Settlement

“…However, all three strategies: liberal working visas, the HSP program and the school‐to‐skilled worker migration pathway – have largely flopped. Micro‐level census data are not available for Japan, making it impossible to calculate the exact number of skilled migrants (Takenaka et al , ). However, based on OECD (: 48) calculations, about 32% of Japan's foreign‐born population is highly skilled.…”

The Academic Achievement of Immigrant Children in Japan: An Empirical Analysis of the Assimilation Hypothesis

“…Across the OECD countries where the study was conducted, the average score for reading literacy, for instance, was 500 with a standard deviation of 100. Although test scores in three subjects were examined, we focus our analysis and discussions on reading literacy, partly because the results derived were almost identical, and partly because reading literacy skills have been identified as particularly crucial in the mostly mono-lingual Japanese school environment (e.g, Kalmijn, 1996;Portes & Rumbaut, 2001;Takenaka et al, 2015). Table 3 shows the mean scores in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy between native and immigrant children.…”