Paper short abstract:

I will analyze how Japanese gender regime affects immigration policy and migrant women's life. Migrant women are concentrated in extremely narrow range of "women's work". Their poor working conditions are reinforced by new immigration policy which implicitly screens migrants by gender.

Paper long abstract:

Migrant women are said to be "emancipated" in host countries which are in general more democratic than their countries of origin. Some researchers argue that earning money by themselves empowers migrant women. On the contrary, women in semi- or unskilled jobs experience disempowerment after coming to Japan. Migrants are unofficially screened by gender when they are to live in Japan. Compared with men, a limited range of jobs are available for migrant women: as entertainers in the sex industry, care workers, workers in labor-intensive factories or spouses of the Japanese. Migrant women have been differently incorporated into the Japanese labor market in accordance with their nationalities and types of visas. For women of some nationalities who have a long-term resident visa or a permanent visa, labor participation ratio is even lower when they are in Japan than in their countries of origin. Spouses of the Japanese (Chinese, Koreans and Filipinas) are less likely to work outside home than descendants of Japanese (Brazilians and Peruvians) who are working in factories. In addition, per hour wages of women are generally lower than those of men in manufacturing and service industries. New immigration policy in 2019 seems to reinforce this tendency. Among fourteen industrial sectors to accept migrant workers, the care industry, which pays the lowest wages among them, is expected to import the largest number of workers. Without changing the gender regime, employment in "women's works" will reinforce old-fashioned gender roles of migrant women in Japan. Using data collected by interviews with migrant women, I will analyze how Japanese gender regime affects immigration policy and migrant women's lives. Low wages and poor working conditions are not only economically impoverishing migrant women, but also deprives them of freedom because of their dependency to male family members.