Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the METI “diversity management” policy, officially regarded as a “non-migration policy” to retain high-skilled foreign talents. It critically analyzes the companies’ role and suggests that the implementation of the policy may run counter to the original policy purpose.

Paper long abstract:

Arguably known as an emerging “immigration country”, Japan has the image of a “closed country” in the academic world. Nevertheless, contrary to the public image, Japan has been consistently welcoming high-skilled immigrants. Furthermore, after the 3.11 triple disaster, it enacted a point system, and through repeated relaxation of conditions, it launched a series of policies, including the establishment of new visa categories with Japanese version of "green card" in 2017, one of the fastest in the world, that would attract high skilled talents. Despite such “migration policies”, the number of high-skilled talents until 2020 is 26.406, even less than the 27.241 non-EU blue card recipients in Germany in the single year of 2018. Scholars have identified the lack of non-migration policies (hi-ijū seisaku) as the cause of the problem, pointing out that the issue is the small inflow and outflow of high-skilled talents (Oishi, 2018).

However, between 2012 and 2021, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) conducted a "Diversity Management Selection 100"/”Diversity Management 2.0 Prime” industrial human resource policy to encourage companies to recruit and retain employees with diverse backgrounds, not limited to but including foreign talents, in order to stimulate innovation and supplement the aging workforce. Through a comparative analysis based on the official evaluation report of high-skilled talents’ acceptance by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the "Diversity Management Selection 100"/”Diversity Management 2.0 Prime” by METI, this paper suggests that "non-migration policies" have not been absent under the second Abe administration, yet the improvements in the workplace seem to be limited. By further analyzing the more than seventy best practices that have been awarded for the active intake of foreign (high-skilled) employees, this paper identifies some award-winning practices that contradict the policy’s purpose. This paper attempts to argue that the reason why the output and outcome of the high-skilled migration policy are not fully aligned may not only lie in the contesting interests in the policy formulation, but also in the implementation of the policy.

Oishi, Nana. 2018. "The Pitfalls of Skilled Migration Policies in Japan." Japanese Sociological Review 68 (4):549-566. doi: 10.4057/jsr.68.549.

Paper short abstract:

The 2018/2019 immigration reform under an (ethno-)nationalistic Prime Minister like Shinzo Abe is puzzling. This paper analyzes the reform and shows how it was realized through a concentration of decision-making power combined with an ideational window of opportunity.

Paper long abstract:

In 2018/2019, the Abe government introduced a new reform in Japan’s immigration policy, which included two new visa categories and a quota system for non-highly qualified foreign workers and established the Immigration Services Agency (ISA) as new government organization responsible for Japan’s admission and integration policy. This reform is not the big bang in Japan’s immigration policy as it does not imply a sudden deregulation of immigration. Still, the speed and scope of this reform is surprising, especially in view of persistent standstill in immigration policy concerning non-highly qualified foreign workers over decades despite far-reaching proposals and heated debates. That this reform was realized under the leadership of Shinzo Abe, although he has often been described and criticized as an (ethno-)nationalist, makes it at first sight even more puzzling. In fact, since the internationalization of higher education under Yasuhiro Nakason in the early 1980s, no other reform has opened Japan potentially so much to additional immigration like the 2018/2019 reform under Abe. It is not without irony that Abe and Nakasone, of all people, as the two prime ministers said to have the strongest ethno-nationalist convictions in the last 40 years, have opened Japan most to immigration through reforms.

This paper analyzes comparatively the ideational frames and institutional setting of the 2018/2019 reform. In a nutshell, it argues that Japan’s immigration policy is not marked by a dominance of ethnonationalism as often assumed but is characterized by a diversity of ideational frames and institutional fragmentation that led to a persistent standstill over decades. A concentration of decision-making power combined with an ideational window of opportunity in the late-2010s allowed the Abe government to realize of this far-reaching reform.

Paper short abstract:

The paper investigates how the mainstream media reflects the elite-level representation of women’s issues during Abe's second premiership. Based on quantitative text analysis, the press coverage of the political elites who played a critical part in the agenda-setting of women’s issues is examined.

Paper long abstract:

The paper investigates how the mainstream media reflects the elite-level representation of women’s issues in Japan. The second premiership of Abe was marked by a surge of initiatives aimed at advancing women’s interests, including the government-led Womenomics. These initiatives notwithstanding, Japan’s progress towards gender equality has remained rather limited. Seeking to shed light on this (seemingly contradictory) phenomenon, this paper investigates the role of the media and to what extent it succeeded in translating the elite-level initiatives into public debate. In an attempt to analyse the media’s ability to translate the parliamentary agenda into public discourse, the paper draws on gender and media studies and examines the press coverage of the actors who played a critical part in the elite-level agenda-setting related to women’s issues. Specifically, quantitative text analysis and regression methods are applied to an original dataset comprising 12,143 newspaper excerpts related to 48 legislators with a proven record of women’s issues promotion. The results show that women’s issues only took up a small portion of the published articles related to the 48 selected critical actors. Moreover, the amount of media spotlight given to these actors on women’s issues was not related to the amount of their actual legislative efforts. In Japan, the factors determining the media coverage of women’s issues were newspapers’ ideological orientation, legislators’ gender, and the size of a party a legislator is affiliated with. The findings in this paper suggest that, in addition to existing socio-political explanations highlighted in previous research, unimpressive progress with gender equality in Japan could also be attributed to the media’s lack of attention to and scrutiny of elite-level initiatives in the legislative branch.