Guest Worker Program in Japan: Chinese Workers’ Mobility in Constructing the 2020 Olympic Games’ Infrastructure

• In Event: 4151 - International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 15: Global Migration II

Abstract

One of the most important aims of guest worker programs is to control the movements of foreign workers. However, this goal is undermined when these programs implement restrictive regimes. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 70 Chinese construction workers, I examine three questions regarding Japan’s guest worker program, the Technical Intern Training Program: why do an increasing number of trainees abandon their contract; how do they manage to jump the contract; and, what are the deterrents that constrain workers’ mobility. My findings suggest a relative deprivation effect arising from a hierarchy in the construction industry among foreign workers with different legal statuses, as well as from horizontal comparisons to other trainees. I argue that the subcontract system in the construction and migration industry actors have contributed to trainees’ jumping the contract. Faced with abuse and attenuated earnings, some workers turn to social networks and social media for assistance in bypassing monitoring and control at three principal points: pre-entry and entry, program participation and exit. Nevertheless, for those who do not jump their contract, the penal contracts required of the workers by brokers in China in tandem with China’s social credit system prove to be crucial deterrents.

Author

• Qiaoyan Li Rosenberg, UCLA