Japan’s Immigration Policies at a Crossroads

Reconsidering Japan’s Specified Skilled Worker Program: Migratory Agency and the Future of Long-term Settlement

The Specified Skilled Worker (SSW, Tokutei Ginō) program, introduced in 2019, represents a major policy shift in Japan, as it openly admits foreign nationals as workers in designated sectors. Initially designed as a pragmatic response to labor shortages, it has been carefully distinguished from “immigration policy,” restricting access to family reunification and long-term settlement. Recent reforms, including the 2024 expansion of SSW (ii) and the scheduled replacement of the Technical Intern Training Program by the Employment with Skill Development (ESD, Ikusei Shūrō) program in 2027, highlight the program’s evolving role in Japan’s migration regime. Research across multiple industries (Kato ed. 2025) reveals structural gaps between the official aims of the SSW and the lived realities of migrants. These include persistent dependence on transition from the Technical Intern program, bureaucratic complexity, and limited protection of workers’ rights. At the same time, the experiences of Vietnamese SSW holders point to how migrants navigate these structural constraints through strategies of persistence, adaptation, and long-term planning. Drawing on upcoming interviews with approximately ten Vietnamese SSW holders, this study examines how they exercise migratory agency (de Haas 2021) to shape their trajectories. Some explore opportunities to extend their stay in Japan through SSW (ii) or other visas, while others anticipate a return to Vietnam with new skills, resources, and capabilities. By foregrounding migrants as active agents rather than passive beneficiaries, this approach situates the SSW not merely as a labor market instrument but as a key arena in which Japan’s future as a country of immigration is being challenged and contested.

The Dynamics of the Formation of Transnational Labor Markets and the Role of Intermediaries in Japan

The number of labor immigrants in Japan has not only increased but also dramatically changed its composition of countries of origin. A growing number of immigrants have come from Southeast Asian and South Asian countries, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Nepal, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. How has this transnational labor market been created? In this presentation, I explore this issue, focusing on the role of intermediary agencies. The Japanese government has formally incorporated intermediaries into the Technical Intern Training Program, assigning them the role of selecting, training, and managing immigrants as well as supervising employers. These intermediary agencies play similar roles in the SSW program. Based on interviews with intermediary agencies and employers, I found that intermediary agencies actively create networks to recruit immigrant workers from a specific country, considering the potential amount and quality of labor supply, geopolitical risks, perceived cultural similarity with Japan, and public and employer reactions to immigrants from different countries. While they help incorporate immigrant workers into the Japanese labor market by teaching them Japanese business culture and lifestyle (how to clean rooms and dispose of garbage), they are not necessarily interested in helping immigrants settle permanently. They unintentionally support Japan’s selective immigration policies: only immigrants who manage to assimilate into Japanese society are allowed to stay longer in Japan.

Migration, Care and Citizenship in Japan

The recent policy reforms in Japan served to open diverse migration corridors with access to citizenship, particularly within the field of long-term care work. Although facing the same challenges of population aging, declining total fertility rate, and shrinking labor force, Japan’s care migration corridors became different from—and far more complex than—other East Asian countries in at least two ways. First, there is a pathway to citizenship through the licensure examination, which provides the legal basis for migrants to settle, bring their families, and eventually lead to permanent residency. Secondly, the employment conditions are formal, being protected under labor laws with full social security. These two points diverge from the usual construction of “care work” elsewhere, which is often constructed as “unskilled”, “informal,” and “disposable.”

The presentation elaborates on the idea of “care citizenship,” a citizenship granted by doing care work, and what it entails. The ways in which migrants are incorporated into the care sector manifest a strong inclination towards being a “good citizen,” not just in terms of political membership but also cultural ideas of being liked by the Japanese. Long-term care is embedded in the cultural notion of “Japaneseness,” where ideas and ideals of independence and self-realization have been practiced. Migrant care workers are part and parcel of the realization of the interests of the Japanese elderly, setting their own interests aside. The Japanese language acquisition is an integral part of becoming a care worker that tames the differences and extrinsically constructs a good citizen. The presentation discusses the limits of care citizenship that is not only precarious, as one needs to continue to work as care workers until they obtain permanent residency, but also migrants will be shaped in a particular way to be liked by the Japanese through the training process that starts in the sending countries.