Working and Childrearing: The Experiences of Nepali Migrants in Japan

• In Event: 30225 - Changing Patterns of International Migration: Asian Perspectives

Abstract

Among the Nepali migrants in Japan, whose population stands at 206,898 people as of June 2024, many not only work in Japan but are also raising their children in the country within the limitations of their resources. Other parents keep their children with grandparents or other family members back in Nepal. Existing literature has not sufficiently addressed why some Nepali migrant parents choose to keep their children in Japan while others do not, which calls for a thorough understanding of their experiences of work and childrearing in Japan. My paper thus seeks to elucidate these experiences through the theoretical lenses of social reproduction and life course sociology. Drawing on fieldwork among Nepali migrant parents in the Greater Tokyo Area, using in-depth interviews and observation between March 2023 and April 2024, I reveal the various ways in which they attempt to navigate the demands of work and childrearing under the existing structural and socio-cultural constraints in Japan. I discuss how this plays out in the lives of Nepali couples in the context of their relationships with each other as well as with other members of the family in Nepal. I illuminate their intentionality, dilemmas and compulsions as they engage with institutions such as childcare centers and, in particular, schools in Japan. Highlighting the insufficient attention given to the issues discussed in my paper in the broader literature on international migration in non-Western contexts, I conclude by showing the significance of my findings in relation to the existing sociological discourses on parenthood, social reproduction and the life course in the context of global migration.

Author

• Binit Gurung, University of Tokyo