How Sociological Migration Researches Contribute Migration Policies in Japan

Abstract

This paper explores how important sociological migration researches after the latter half of 1980's of foreign migrants staying in Japan have contributed or not to migration policies in Japan.
The amended Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act enacted in 1990 decided the basic direction of Japanese migration policies; and thus present migration policies is often called “1990 regime”. Under the regime, only immigration controls are precedent, and policies for inclusive migrant integration are almost non-existent.
The regime opened the way to accept Japanese descendants overseas and technical trainees and apprentices as labor force. It also decided to reject unskilled workers, leading to rapid increase of irregularly staying migrant workers. Corresponding to the situation, five major fields of interest of sociological migration research have developed. They are as follows; work situations and everyday lives of migrant workers, regional concentration of migrants and area studies, differentiated modes of adaptation of migrants by ethnic groups, educational problems of the second generation of migrants, and entitlement of political rights for migrants.
Sociological migrant researches and researchers helped partial relieves of irregular migrants as well as positive contributions to community problem solutions and improvements of migrant treatment by local governments. However, at present, the perspective of opening the way towards the comprehensive migrant integration policy by sociologists is so meager.