ABSTRACT
It has been over three decades since the onset of contemporary migration into Japan. From the economic boom in the 1980s to its bust in early 1990s, going through the decade of stagnating economy in the 1990s, and then experiencing the global financial crisis in 2008 and the March 11 Earthquake disasters in 2011, how do the newcomer immigrants 2 in Japan fair? Existing literature has documented immigrants’ different patterns of economic incorporation into Japanese society and different niches they occupy in the labour market. The Filipinos, mostly women, have been entertainers and care givers (e.g. Piquero-Ballescas 1992; Tyner 1996; Suzuki 2008; David 2009; Lopez 2012). The Nikkei Brazilians 3 are the manual labourers (Tsuda 2003, Roth 2002, Higuchi and Tanno 2003; Ōkubo 2005; Onai 2009). 90% of the working Brazilians in Japan are engaged in manual labour (Takenoshita et al. 2014). The Chinese immigrants are more diverse. Research shows varied labour market niches occupied by Chinese migrants, including the professional workers in corporate Japan (Takenoshita 2006; Liu-Farrer 2011a; Le Bail 2011), transnational entrepreneurs (Liu-Farrer 2007, 2011b) as well as trainees who are toiling in Japan’s factories, farms and oceans (Tajima 2010). The Koreans, on the other hand, are mostly old-comers. The limited literature about newcomers’ economic practices focuses on ethnic businesses and entrepreneurship (e.g. Lim 2004).
