Migration Policy and Social Integration of Southeast Asian Workers

นโยบายการย้ายถิ่นและ การบูรณาการทางสังคมของแรงงานเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้

Abstract

Migrant workers from Southeast Asia are a growing population in Japan today.  The country has begun receiving not merely highly skilled professionals but low-skilled workers as well in its recent history.  A number of legal reforms took place alongside the increasing number of migrants there before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.  What brought these legal changes?  How do local communities attempt to include such migrant workers in their socioeconomic developments?  In what ways is social integration of migrants and their families taking place?  This paper shows how the Southeast Asian population has expanded in contemporary Japan, tracing its immigration legal reforms and emerging case stories.  Locally, social leaders critiqued the government for lacking decent immigration policy, whilst solving the labor shortage was strongly anticipated.  Internationally, the country faced demands to contribute toward regional development as well by providing jobs for growing young workers in other parts of Asia.  Accordingly, both locally and globally, social expectation emerged for the country to change its policy towards receiving more migrant workers.  Thus far, Japan is criticized for having many of those workers under a trainee or candidate visa category as a form of labor exploitation.  Evaluations of the socio-legal transformation toward a more multicultural society provide an important case to contemplate social integration, inequality, and sustainability.  This study illuminates these results based on the literature on migration and work, equal employment opportunities, and gender and citizenship in globalization.