Foreign Nurses Working in Japan: Assessments of the EPA Program edited by Hirano and Yoneno-Reyes (2021) discusses the nurse migration from Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam to Japan under the EPAs’ framework, from multidisciplinary perspectives, including nursing. What makes this book unique from other similar books on migration of health professionals in contemporary Japan is that several...
Fantastical spaces, they are ubiquitous in contemporary Japanese literature, hidden, secluded, guarded, and with secretive and limited access, altogether reinforcing then ethereal and labyrinthe quality. A fantastical space resembles and yet varies from the everyday world we experience. This setting resonates with fantasy being the unseen culture, but also emphasizes on the boundaries and hence...
While nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiments have grown in many industrialized countries, Japan’s situation has been quite different. Although nationalism has been on the rise and the concerns for ethnic and cultural diversity still exist, the Japanese public has become much more open to migration than in the past. The number of migrants hit a record...
Research has revealed that migrants are incorporated differently in the care sector according to the intersection of migration-care regime nexus. Japan’s care sector went through significant structural change in 2000 due to the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI). The care market has expanded rapidly, resulting in a chronic shortage of care workers and migrant workers started...
The recent Olympics and Paralympics have thrust the issue of "accessibility" in Japan into the spotlight. Accessibility features promote inclusion, but they do not guarantee it. Accessibility is more than ensuring the “ability” of people with disabilities to access products, services, structures, and systems. This presentation focuses on the effect of various inclusion efforts on...
Despite labor shortages and rapidly shrinking working-age populations, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan shared restrictive immigration policies and exclusionary practices toward immigrants until the early 2000s. While Taiwan maintained this trajectory, Japan took incremental steps to expand immigrant services at the grassroots level, and South Korea enacted sweeping immigration reforms. How did convergent policies generate...