Disparity in high school enrollment between native and immigrant children in Japan

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Author: Risa Hagiwara,Yang Liu
• Date: 01 March 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/asej.12288

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Disparity in high school enrollment between native and

immigrant children in Japan

Risa Hagiwara

1

| Yang Liu

2

1

Faculty of Economics, Meikai University, Chiba, Japan

2

Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, IAA, Tokyo, Japan

Correspondence

Risa Hagiwara, Faculty of Economics, Meikai University, 1 Akemi, Urayasu-shi, Chiba 279-8550, Japan.

Email: hagiwara@meikai.ac.jp

Funding information

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant/Award Numbers: 17KT0037, 18K12799

Abstract

Using nonlinear decomposition, this study examines the gap in high school enrollment

between native and immigrant children based on data from the 2010 Population Census.

The school attendance probability of immigrant children is significantly lower than that

of native children. Factors contributing to the gap are the length of stay in Japan, paren-

tal employment status, and home ownership. The total explained part of all observable

factors is approximately 30% in the comparison between native and immigrant children

whose parents are both foreigners. Furthermore, immigrant children who do not attend

high school are more likely to be unemployed.

KEYWORDS

decomposition method, high school enrollment, immigrant

JEL CLASSIFICATION

J15, I24, I28

1|INTRODUCTION

In light of the increasing number of migrants to Japan since 2012, the issue of

immigrant children has recently attracted a great deal of policy interest (Cabinet

of Japan, 2018,2019a,2019b). According to the Foreign Resident Statistics

DOI: 10.1111/asej.12288

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,

distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2023 The Authors. Asian Economic Journal published by East Asian Economic Association and John Wiley &

Sons Australia, Ltd.

Received: 27 May 2021; Revised: 11 January 2023; Accepted: 31 January 2023

Asian Econ. J. 2023;37:25–50. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/asej 25

from the Ministry of Justice, at the end of 2021, Japan was home to a record

2 760 635 foreign residents. Japan has long been hesitant to accept foreigners,

owing to concerns about increasing crime rates, fiscal burden, and the effect on

the employment rate of Japanese workers (Bartram, 2000; Kobayashi, 2010;

Oishi, 2021), even though many foreign countries are accepting of foreigners as

immigrants.

1

However, Japan is dealing with the growing problem of an aging

population, prompting the government to shift its policy toward accepting for-

eigners to join the Japanese labor force, which faces a supply shortage.

In 2012, the residency management system was renewed. Under the new sys-

tem, the period of the right to stay in Japan was extended to a maximum of

5 years, including a 1-year extension of the re-entry permit maximum validity

period at one time. These changes have encouraged more people to move to

Japan. In 2018, Japan’s parliament approved a new immigrant law, the Immi-

gration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, which encourages workers to

come to the country to alleviate labor shortages. Under the new law, foreigners

can work in construction, farming, and nursing but not as technical trainees or

interns. Moreover, two new visa categories have been created for foreign

workers: (1) a renewable 5-year visa for semi-qualified and blue-collar workers,

two employment categories that face labor shortages, and (2) an unlimited

renewal visa for high-skilled workers. Both visa types require Japanese language

proficiency. These new visa categories are expected to increase the number of

both high-skilled and low-wage foreign workers coming to Japan.

Despite the chan ges to Japan’s immigration system and the society’sgradual

multiracial and multiethnic transformation, immigrants face adaptation chal-

lenges, especially when compared with the adaptation experiences of foreign resi-

dents in other host countries (Liu-Farrer, 2020). Foreign residents must adapt to

their host country, which benefits both the host country and the immigrant. For

example, according to Chiswick (1991) and Borjas (1994), earnings assimilation

occurs when immigrants improve their language skills or obtain more education.

In particular, because immigrants are likely to have children, the adaptation of

these children is an important policy issue. The Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development (OECD) (2015,2017) revealed that immigrant chil-

dren experience difficulties with education, employment, and otherforms of social

participation in host countries. This is particularly the case for those immigrant

children whose native language differs from the language or languages of the host

country (for the case of Japan, see Liu-Farrer, 2020). This language disadvantage

has serious consequences for the future success of immigrant children. As these

children grow older, their lack of language skills can place them at a considerable

disadvantage in critical life stages, such as school entrance examinations and job

1

Immigrants are people who legally move from their home country or another country to a host country. In

Japan, immigrants do not have citizenship rights to settle or reside. Permanent residents and naturalized citizens in

Japan are regarded as immigrants (see Taguchi, 1983, for details).

26 HAGIWARA and LIU