Japanese Journal of Sociology最新文献

In contemporary Taiwan, arranged marriage seems a remote legend. However, the mainstream ideology of romantic love and marriage is a recent phenomenon that started only half a century ago. The debate on love and marriage that took place a hundred years ago has been reopened in current Taiwanese society on transnational marriage and same-sex marriage debates, which are regarded as non-conforming marriages in a specific historical period. We argue that the hegemonic ideology of romantic love has produced a powerful exclusionary effect on cross-border marriages based on ethnic and class discrimination, but also an inclusive effect on same-sex marriage in present Taiwan society, which underscores the power of the discourse of love in modern Taiwanese social life. The love discourse can be progressive in a specific historical conjuncture, but it can also be regressive by excluding other forms of intimacy.

This article examines changing romantic relationships in contemporary Japanese society. It specifically investigates whether Japanese people in their twenties and thirties have become asexual; that is, whether they tend to have few sexual experiences or interests. Data were collected through an internet survey; this article uses a subsample of 9,940 respondents. The dependent variables were the number of lovers respondents had during and after junior high school; the independent variable was the respondents’ age. Regression analyses found a clear trend toward asexual behavior among young men (in their twenties and thirties). However, young women are not as asexual as the previous generation. This asexualization of men may have contributed to Japan’s sharply declining marriage and birth rates. If so, other Asian societies may learn lessons from Japan’s experiences in the future.

This study investigates the influence of high school sector on educational success in Japan. A range of previous research on disparities among high schools has revealed that high school rank (based on the academic ability of pupils, etc.) originated from the democratization of high school. However, given that the democratization of high school is supported by private high schools, high school sector may become a factor for high school ranking. The data used for the analysis are the 2005 National Survey of Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) in Japan. The results indicate that students who enter private high schools have lower academic ability than students who enter public high schools. By contrast, private high school students have greater educational success than public high school students. Moreover, this study reveals that private high school students are generally from a higher social class than public high school students. Given that the use of entrance examinations for private junior high schools has been increasing since the 1990s, in the future, the effect of private schools on educational success may become stronger in not only high schools but also junior high schools. This study thus emphasizes the importance of paying greater attention to the relationship between educational success and the private and public school sectors.

As labor markets become increasingly global, competition among industrialized nations to attract highly skilled workers from abroad has intensified. Spurred by concerns over future economic needs caused by the demographic challenges of an aging population, both Japan and Sweden have joined this global competition. This article examines Japanese and Swedish immigration policies for highly skilled migrants and compares the highly skilled migrants’ experiences in the two countries through interviews with these migrants. Despite Japan and Sweden's completely different approaches to immigration itself, both countries’ policies, as well as the experiences of the skilled migrants, are strikingly similar. Highly skilled migrants experience language barriers and prejudice in both countries, making it difficult to build social networks with natives. Career development seems to be perceived as a common problem, although less so in Sweden, where labor markets are more flexible. Overall, these issues reduce both Japan's and Sweden's ability to retain skilled migrants. While they share similarities, Sweden's famed work–life balance and gender equality give it an edge in the competition for skilled migrants, which Japan does not share. This comparison identifies which social conditions facilitate or impede skilled migrant settlement.

The Japanese government has encouraged the opening of the domestic market to foreign workers under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) as a “special case” in order “to promote the trade relationship between Japan and the countries that sign the agreement” since 2008. According to the literature, the introduction of nurses and care workers is not at all economical. Many empirical studies indicate that the costs of accepting EPA candidates is crucial for accepting institutions. In this study, the authors developed a multiple regression model for the economic and psychological burden of EPA and evaluated the goodness of fit of the model by comparing hospitals and care facilities. The multiple regression analysis indicated a good fit model for hospitals, but not for care facilities. The authors speculate that there are some differences in management between hospitals and care facilities that should be considered in interpreting this phenomenon.

This article examines the social and historical conditions of negotiations for expanding migrant domestic workers partial citizenship under neoliberal policies. It uses a case study of Filipino domestic workers struggling for regularization in the Parisian region, 2008–2012. Under Sarkozy's neoliberal immigration policy called chosen immigration, Hortefeux, the then Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Cooperative Development, authorized case-by-case “regularization based on work” in his circular of 7 January 2008. Consequently, led by a coalition of trade unions, sans papiers (undocumented) collectives and migrant support groups, large-scale mobilizations occurred demanding rights-based regularization. Although undocumented Filipino domestic workers remained socially invisible during this campaign, a quiet, small-scale but unprecedented mobilization took place among Filipino sans papières. Based on 10 months of fieldwork, this article shows how the neoliberal tendency in the two policy areas of immigration and personal services opened up the opportunity for Filipino migrant women to have access to the institutional resources of the Private Household Workers (PHW) trade union and to break the deadlock of “double irregularity”, that is, the dispossession of both their residential permit and labor contract. This case depended on the activism of a trade unionist of Filipino origin, a trailblazer who filled the structural hole between Filipino ethnic networks and the local domestic workers’ movement. Among the outcomes are the rising consciousness among Filipinos of the usefulness of learning French, as well as a new narrative that incorporates the struggles of Filipino domestic workers in the PHW trade union history.

This article focuses on the first group of Filipino certified care worker (kaigo fukushishi) candidates who joined Japan's caregiving workforce under the Japan–Philippines economic partnership agreement (EPA) in 2009. The arrival of this group marked the start of the arrival of Filipinos specifically to work and study for 3 years in a designated care facility in order to take Japan's unique national board exam in 2013. Based on the follow-up research on 49 of the first group of 190 Filipino candidates, this study examines the lives of those passing the board exam who decided to remain and continue to work in Japan. Being able to transfer to various care facilities for better employment conditions, their quality of life in Japan has improved, while the issues regarding their residential status and reuniting with their family have yet to be resolved.