ABSTRACT
Aside from a few exceptions (Chiavacci 2009; Murakami 2012; NB 26.09.2006), issues surrounding ethnic minorities and immigration have been conspicuously absent in public debate and scientific research on Japan as a “gap society” (kakusa shakai). Yet, in the late 1980s, Japan was transformed from a non-immigration country into an immigration country. In the last quarter-century it experienced a continuous inflow of new immigrants and its foreign population increased from around 850,000 to over 2 million (MOJ 2004–2014). With less than 2% of foreign residents Japan’s share of immigrants is still very low by international comparison, but it has more than doubled. More importantly, in absolute numbers of annual inflows Japan is today one of the most important international migration destination among OECD countries (OECD 2015: 268). In view of Japan’s demographic development this trend will most likely gain a completely new momentum in the future. According to projections, around a quarter of Tokyo’s next generation of school children will have at least one foreign parent (Graburn and Ertl 2008: 21). Japan’s ethnically relative homogeneous society is dramatically changing and literally melting away before our very eyes. In view of this transformation, how is Japan coping structurally with its new immigration? Does the new immigration lead to new forms of inequality and perhaps even to ethnic underclasses? Or do new immigrants achieve full integration into Japan’s economic mainstream and become part of its middle class? As the “new” immigration to Japan is already a quarter of a century old, it is possible to reach some initial conclusions about the structural long-term patterns of socio-economic integration and exclusion of new immigrants.
