Migration and Multicultural Contention in East Asia

Abstract

Japan, Korea and Taiwan have experienced rapid and dramatic demographic changes during the last three decades. In all three countries, changes of fertility decline, ageing and sex imbalances preceded massive increases in international marriages and labour migration. In this article, we analyse how these demographic and social transformations affect policies of migration and integration in this region. Demographics are changing with the integration of foreign brides and professional migrants and with declining fertility rates. Despite this, the magnitude and speed of change within the policy provisions for migration and integration are still very limited and slow—Japan, Korea and Taiwan, for instance, all maintain ‘assimilationist’ or ‘passive multicultural’ migration and integration policies.

Keywords:

• Demographic Change
• Labour Migration
• International Marriage
• Contested Governance
• Multiculturalist Policies

Acknowledgements

We thank Emiko Hatayama, Will Brett and Joon Kim for valuable assistance and suggestions.

Notes

1. For a discussion about the relationship between an economically active population and fertility decline, see Das Gupta and Bhat (1997), Edlund (1999), Hesketh and Zhu (2006) and Park and Cho (1995).

2. ‘3-D’ refers to those ‘dirty, dangerous and difficult’ jobs in manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors which native workers generally shun. The SMI sector is defined by the number of workers and the volume of production and capital. Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member-countries established slightly varying standards for each country in each industry. For Korea, manufacturing companies with fewer than 300 workers are considered to be small and medium businesses. Japan and Taiwan have similar standards.

3. According to the Korea National Statistical Office (2008), France took 115 years—from an ageing society in 1864—to become an aged society in 1979. Italy took 61 years, Germany 40 and Japan 24; the US is projected to take 73 years (see Kim 2009).

4. The Korean government increased penalties for doctors convicted of performing foetal sex detection and suspended the medical licences of eight physicians. The law was further strengthened in 1994, allowing the revocation of medical licences and even prison terms (East–West Center 1995).

5. Low wages and inadequate labour protection were the key issues. In order to address flaws in the system, the Japanese government established the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization (JITCO) in 1991 and launched the Technical Internship Training Program for Foreigners (TITP) in 1993. These systems were temporary guestworker programmes based on the principle of rotating workers every two to five years.

6. The high divorce rate among middle-aged Japanese couples due to extramarital relationships, the husbands’ long-term foreign assignments and other socio-economic reasons has also boosted the trend of second marriages between divorced Japanese men and young foreign brides (Takeshita 2000).