Economic crisis and Brazilian immigrants in Japan: The role of social inclusion policies for immigrants

Social inclusion and integration of immigrants into the host society has drawn much attention among policy makers and immigration scholars. Citizenship and welfare policies for immigrants should be considered when it comes to social inclusion of immigrants in settler societies. Such discussion has focused on citizenship and welfare policies for immigrants in North American and European countries, whereas few studies did so in Asian countries, some of which are regarded as recent countries of immigration such as China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. While in the postwar period, welfare states appear to control the market economy, globalization has weakened the state control for market economy. In the 21st century, we are faced with frequent economic turbulence that results largely from globalized financial market uncontrolled by welfare states. American debt crisis that started in 2007 have affected economic conditions across the world, leading to negative outcomes in employment among immigrants. Japan started to accept a large number of immigrants from other countries in 1980s, whereas citizenship and welfare policies that help immigrants integrate into the mainstream society are lacking because the Japanese government has regarded immigrant workers from foreign countries as temporary residents rather than permanent settlers. Nevertheless, many contingent workers including immigrant workforces were dismissed in 2008 because demand for products in the export-oriented manufacturing industry shrank rapidly. The Japanese government had to cope with a massive increase in the unemployed. This made the Japanese government initiate a kind of active labor market programs for unemployed immigrant workers. This study focuses on the integration programs for unemployed Latin American workers run by the Japanese government. Although I find some moderate changes in policies for immigrants after this economic crisis, I investigate whether and to what extent this policy changes contributed to improvement in socioeconomic marginalization among Brazilian immigrants in Japan.