From Invisible to Visible: Brazilian Female Migrants’ Occupational Aspirations under the Force of Visibility in Japan
From Invisible to Visible: Brazilian Female Migrants’ Occupational Aspirations under the Force of Visibility in Japan

Author(s): Tamaki Watarai
Subject(s): Politics, Gender Studies, Geography, Regional studies, Policy, planning, forecast and speculation, Migration Studies, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Brazil; migration; female migrants; Japan; occupational aspirations; labor relations; policy; visibility;
Summary/Abstract: In 1990, the Japanese government began issuing renewable three-year “long-term residence visas,” with no restrictions on socioeconomic activities, for non-citizen children and grandchildren of emigrants from Japan and their family members. Although the Japanese government denied publicly that this policy was intended to attract unskilled foreign workers, it served, in fact, to alleviate Japan’s shortage of unskilled labor, especially in secondary industries. For Japanese–Brazilians, who were mainly members of the Brazilian middle class, returning to their ancestral homeland and becoming unskilled workers at that time was a solution to the high unemployment and wage reductions that were resulting from Brazil’s economic crisis and hyperinflation.

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