Gracia Liu-Farrer | Waseda University

Gracia Liu-Farrer

Waseda University, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Faculty Member

Waseda University, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Faculty Member |

International Migration

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258 Followers | 15 Following | 2 Co-authors | —Total Views

Papers

“I am the Only Woman in Suits”: Chinese Immigrants and Gendered Careers in

This paper uses Chinese immigrant women’s career experiences in Japanese firms to explore the imp... more This paper uses Chinese immigrant women’s career experiences in Japanese firms to explore the impact of economic globalization on the gendered career patterns in Japan. Gender stratification characterizes corporate Japan. Japanese firms frequently assign women to career tracks with few job responsibilities and promotion opportunities. Chinese immigrant women working in Japanese firms inevitably confront such gender inequality. Their foreigner status further increases the di$culty for them to advance their careers in Japan. However, although still at a disadvantage, by situating themselves in occupational niches in Japanese firms ’ transnational businesses, some Chinese immi-grant women are able to overcome the gendered career arrangements and to achieve upward mobility. This paper describes how they struggle with organizational constraints, economic opportu-nities and gender norms. It suggests that economic globalization, in the forms of international labor migration and increasing ...

Working in Japan

Immigrant Japan

This chapter maps the diverse patterns of immigrants' labor market participation and career m... more This chapter maps the diverse patterns of immigrants' labor market participation and career mobility. Several characteristics stand out. First, immigrants in Japan occupy diverse roles in the Japanese economy. They provide low-wage casual or disposable labor in the secondary labor market as well as work as highly skilled professionals in global businesses. Second, different national or regional backgrounds have shown uneven potential for socioeconomic mobility. Finally, the chapter shows that immigrants are creatively engaged in the Japanese economy. Not only are they needed as supplemental labor, but immigrants in Japan are also forces for bridging the Japanese economy with markets outside the country. The chapter then highlights the strategies that immigrants employ to find their niche in Japan's economy—from occupational niching to transnational entrepreneurship. Through finding niches and bridging structural holes, immigrants utilize their unique capacity to not only sur...

Gender, labour, and migration in Japan

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture

From Asia with money

Producing global economies from below: Chinese immigrant transnational entrepreneurship in Japan

Otebyo: the Problems of Japanese Firms and the Problematic Elite Aspirations

Big Japanese firms are notorious for rigid hierarchy, stagnant career mobility and anachronistic ... more Big Japanese firms are notorious for rigid hierarchy, stagnant career mobility and anachronistic corporate practices. These practices discourage women and foreigners from developing meaningful careers, and sometimes jeopardize human security. Why do such problems persist despite a looming demographic crisis, when both women and foreigners are (supposedly) needed for the labor force? Using interview data with employees as well as management in elite Japanese enterprises, this paper argues that many such problems are the results of the internal labor market Japanese firms have developed since the 1950s. The situation can only be changed with an overhaul of their human resources management. However, big firms have little incentive to change, because while Japan faces labor shortage, the big firms still have an adequate supply of human resources. Individuals, while aspiring new ideals of work and career, are anxious about the precarious labor market, shackled by achievement ideology, and vulnerable to the lure of social status signaled by the employment in big firms. To change Japans corporate practices, therefore, not only do the companies need to change the way employees careers are organized, but individuals should also reexamine their career choices and life priority.

Citizenship and Belonging Among Newcomer Immigrants in Japan

Over 2 million foreign nationals currently reside in Japan legally, and the majority of them newc... more Over 2 million foreign nationals currently reside in Japan legally, and the majority of them newcomers. Although foreigner population is small compared to the total population in Japan, foreign residents have become an increasingly visible presence in Japanese social and economic life. How are these immigrants integrated into Japanese society? This paper, by examining the narratives and practices among immigrants in Japan, shows a complex picture. On the one hand, immigrants who have lived in Japan for a substantial period have demonstrated a high degree of cultural assimilation and social incorporation. On the other hand, Japan, despite its multicultural coexistence programs, has not made immigrants feel that they are “immigrants” of this country, let alone potential participants of its democratic political process. In their minds, Japanese society remains culturally unique and Japanese identity primordial and fixed. This does not mean that immigrants are frequently rejected or dis...

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The new Chinese immigrants in Japan

Immigrating to Japan

Immigrant Japan

This chapter assesses what attracts people to Japan. Using narratives, it explains how Japan is p... more This chapter assesses what attracts people to Japan. Using narratives, it explains how Japan is positioned in migrants' imagined cartography of global mobility. First of all, Japan is a land filled with opportunities. Japan provides economic incentives for some, and education opportunities and career alternatives for others. At times it is a way to escape oppressive circumstances in immigrants' home societies. Second, Japan has also been a place imbued with fantasy; Japan attracts those who have genuine cultural interests in the country. Rising from the ruins of war, Japan dazzled the world with its rapid advances in technology and economic power. The economic miracle drew people in to explore Japan's social and cultural practices. Since the 1990s, Japanese anime, manga, and video games have gained worldwide fandom. Thus, for people with cultural interests, Japan is not merely one destination out of many; it is exactly where they want to be.

Children of Immigrants

Immigrant Japan

This chapter addresses the education experiences and outcomes of children of full or partial fore... more This chapter addresses the education experiences and outcomes of children of full or partial foreign parentage who grew up in Japan. It highlights some of their education strategies and practices and discusses how migration channels, parents' socioeconomic situations, and cultural backgrounds affect such practices and children's education achievements. Immigrant parents, regardless of their class and ethnic and cultural backgrounds, share an eagerness to advance their children's education. They strategize among different educational options and choose those they believe can produce better outcomes as well as match their mobility goals. However, the educational outcomes of the children vary widely, across national groups and along class lines. This has to do with the variant cultural, social, and economic resources that can be used to advance children's education. Meanwhile, the easiest educational choice available to them, Japanese public education, falls short in fa...

4. Weaving the Web of a Life in Japan

Immigrant Japan

Growing up in Japan

Immigrant Japan

This chapter studies immigrant children's diverse strategies to make sense of their subjectiv... more This chapter studies immigrant children's diverse strategies to make sense of their subjectivities and establish their relationships with Japanese society. In particular, it examines how changing environments, especially the different institutional contexts they go through in the course of their growing up, contribute to the shaping of their identities. Born to foreign parents, immigrant children in Japan are surrounded by a complex cultural and social environment and have to continually adjust their relationships to such contexts and modify their subjectivities in the course of doing so. Because nationality is a powerful identification, they also have to negotiate their own identity between Japan—the place where they live and are acculturated to but at times rejected by—and the country or countries where their parents are from and where their passports say they are from. This process of encounters and negotiations enhances their awareness of the limits and freedom of being immi...

Immigrant Japan

Who are the fittest? The question of skills in national employment systems in an age of global labour mobility

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

ABSTRACT Faced with demographic as well as economic changes, Germany and Japan have liberalised i... more ABSTRACT Faced with demographic as well as economic changes, Germany and Japan have liberalised immigration controls for skilled migrants, set targets for foreign student enrolments in university, and introduced visa categories to enable foreign graduates to enter their labour markets. Yet a relatively modest share of foreign graduates actually receives jobs appropriate to their skill-level and remain in these labour markets. In this article, we focus on organisational recruitment and employment practices, especially those related to skill formation and the structuring of careers, as factors affecting the remain rates of foreign graduates. Our analysis shows that while obtaining the same educational credentials as native students, foreign graduates are disadvantaged because the employment systems of the host countries operate according to the logic of national labour markets, entailing institutionally and culturally specific skill expectations as well as formation processes. Consequently, foreign graduates either fail to enter the market, or are placed in lower or niche categories in a differentiated labour market.

City Making and Global Labor Regimes: Chinese Immigrants and Italy's Fast Fashion Industry Antonella Ceccagno Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 xvii + 301 pp. £79.99 ISBN 978-3-319-59980-9

The China Quarterly

Bridging the Institutional Gaps: International Education as a Migration Industry

International Migration

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Chinese Newcomers in Japan: Migration Trends, Profiles and the Impact of the 2011 Earthquake

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 2013

Since the late-1970s, millions of Chinese have arrived in Japan as students, workers, family memb... more Since the late-1970s, millions of Chinese have arrived in Japan as students, workers, family members, long-term residents, and undocumented migrant workers. Hundreds of thousands of them have chosen to settle in this country. This paper introduces the major patterns of contemporary migration from China to Japan and describes some characteristics of Chinese migrants, highlighting the transnationality of their socioeconomic practices and settlement orientation. It also discusses the impact of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake on the Chinese community, pointing out that migration decision-making takes into account a complex set of contextual factors. Natural disasters might only be a small part of the causal reasons or a catalyst at best. On the other hand, the shared disaster experience might be an opportunity for migrants to participate in societal building and cultivate a sense of belonging.

Migration as Class-based Consumption: The Emigration of the Rich in Contemporary China

The China Quarterly, 2016

Labelled as the third wave of migration out of post-reform China, the recent emigration of wealth... more Labelled as the third wave of migration out of post-reform China, the recent emigration of wealthy Chinese has attracted worldwide attention. Although this form of mobility involves primarily the richest 0.1 per cent of the Chinese population, the high profile of the people who move and the amount of wealth implied have made it a sensational social phenomenon. Through interviews, participant observation and media reports, this paper searches for the social meanings of this trend of emigration. Journalists generally attribute the exodus of the rich to a desire to secure their wealth, an aspiration for a different education for their children, or concerns with air pollution and food safety. What this paper argues is that underneath these stated motivations, emigration is in fact a form of class-based consumption, a strategy for class reproduction, and a way to convert economic resources into social status and prestige. “Emigration” (yimin), a form of mobility that may not entail settl...

Ambiguous Concepts and Unintended Consequences : Rethinking Skilled Migration Policies from the Case of Chinese Student Migrants in Japan

アジア太平洋討究, 2013

Immigration policy makers tend to have preexisting notions about categories such as “internationa... more Immigration policy makers tend to have preexisting notions about categories such as “international students,” and “skilled” or “unskilled” migrants. They often design and implement immigration policies according to the observable labor shortage at any given time. There are two caveats in this approach. First, these commonsense categories adopted in immigration policy making are in reality highly ambiguous concepts. Such ambiguity leads to unintended policy consequences. Second, migration trends evolve in an interaction between individual migrant characteristics and socio-institutional contexts. It is impossible for national policies to dictate the outcomes of migration. Increasingly globalized and market-driven economic processes render it futile or even counterproductive for national governments to control who they want and who they do not want. This paper uses the migration outcomes of Chinese migrants in Japan to substantiate these arguments. First, it shows the diversity of international students as a category of migrants as well as the blurred boundary between skilled and unskilled labor. It describes the context-specific nature of “skills” and the development of real skills from “unskilled” labor. Second, the economic and social practices of Chinese migrants in Japan, through their niche occupations in Japanese firms’ transnational business, their entrepreneurship, and their cross-border living arrangements all indicate that immigrants, skilled or not, contribute to Japanese economy and Japanese socio-cultural life in ways that are not foreseen or prescribed in immigration policies.

Religious Pluralism in the Diaspora

Iran and the Caucasus, 2007

“I am the Only Woman in Suits”: Chinese Immigrants and Gendered Careers in

Working in Japan

Immigrant Japan

Gender, labour, and migration in Japan

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture

From Asia with money

Producing global economies from below: Chinese immigrant transnational entrepreneurship in Japan

Otebyo: the Problems of Japanese Firms and the Problematic Elite Aspirations

Citizenship and Belonging Among Newcomer Immigrants in Japan

Download

The new Chinese immigrants in Japan

Immigrating to Japan

Immigrant Japan

Children of Immigrants

Immigrant Japan

4. Weaving the Web of a Life in Japan

Immigrant Japan

Growing up in Japan

Immigrant Japan

Who are the fittest? The question of skills in national employment systems in an age of global labour mobility

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

The China Quarterly

Bridging the Institutional Gaps: International Education as a Migration Industry

International Migration

Download

Chinese Newcomers in Japan: Migration Trends, Profiles and the Impact of the 2011 Earthquake

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 2013

Migration as Class-based Consumption: The Emigration of the Rich in Contemporary China

The China Quarterly, 2016

Ambiguous Concepts and Unintended Consequences : Rethinking Skilled Migration Policies from the Case of Chinese Student Migrants in Japan

アジア太平洋討究, 2013

Religious Pluralism in the Diaspora

Iran and the Caucasus, 2007

Bridging the Institutional Gaps: International Education as a Migration Industry

International Migration, 2019

This article examines the education-migration industry that has channelled students from China an... more This article examines the education-migration industry that has channelled students from China and Viet Nam into Japan over the past three decades and discusses the conditions for the emergence of such an industry, the major actors and the reasons for their changing roles and practices. It argues that the education-migration industry in Japan emerged because of the dis-crepant institutional logics. Japan's reluctance to open the door for labour import, despite its acute labour shortage, has turned international education into a sanctioned channel of labour migration and thereby created opportunities for international education to become a thriving migration industry. As long as this institutional gap remains, government regulations will only create new sources of power and profits for brokers who can navigate complex regulations and employ illicit means to satisfy the legal requirements. The education-migration industry is therefore a derivative of Japan's immigration regime and actively interacts with government policies.

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