2019.25: Johanna O. Zulueta: The Aging Other: Older Migrants in Today’s Japan
“One of my plans is to have a ‘home for the aged’ for Filipinos and other foreigners here in Japan,” Emma said to me one winter evening in January 2019 when we were chatting at her apartment during her birthday dinner. “Some of the Filipinas here do not see themselves returning to the Philippines,” she added. Unexpectedly, Emma answered a lingering question I have had about Filipinas in Japan – whether they will return home or stay in Japan. While the return home remains a plan of many I have spoken with, some express uncertainties due to the presence of their immediate families in Japan, especially their children. Emma herself is one of these Filipinas. A former entertainer-turned-businesswoman, her plan to have a facility for aged Filipinos may be about business, but this also points to an increasingly important concern that long-time migrants in Japan face: old age.
Japan is said to have the oldest population among the world’s high-income countries, with an elderly population of 27.7 percent.[1] Due to this inevitable reality, the country is facing issues regarding its pension system, its dwindling labour force, and its stagnant birth rate. With these factors has come a shift in the Japanese government’s policies regarding the acceptance of migrant workers to address Japan’s need for more workers to contribute to its tax and pension systems. It is not only Japanese nationals that are facing the realities of aging; the foreign population is also confronting this stark reality away from their homelands.
Filipinos are currently the fourth largest foreign group in Japan, totalling 271,289.[2] Most are women, many of whom moved to Japan between the early 1980s and the 1990s. Most of these women either worked in the entertainment sector or migrated as brides for Japanese men in rural areas.[3] Most of these women have built families and made Japan their home. As of 2018, 44,931 Filipinas aged fifty and over resided in Japan, the majority of whom are married to Japanese men.
What are the issues and concerns faced by these older migrant women in Japan? Based on my ongoing research on older Filipina migrants in the Kansai and Kanto areas, I see several issues, including social citizenship (which includes social security, welfare, and other rights enjoyed by this group), intergenerational relationships and “transnational caregiving,”[4] and end-of-life decision making.
In interviews with me, many of these women have expressed concern regarding government support and social rights. For example, Amy said: “Of course, if I insist to stay here in Japan, I need a comfort zone… living support, like if you cannot work anymore with living allowance, your family also can receive all the benefits I gave to the company before… if we can ask the government to bring this also to our kids”. Others expressed concerns about their pensions, which they do think is enough for daily living, as well as having an aged facility for foreigners.
Most of these women have adult children, and some are grandmothers. Reaching an advanced stage in their lives, care for their children has shifted to care for their husbands and grandchildren, while at the same time they are engaging in transnational caregiving for their own families back home – their parents and kin. Transnational caregiving is usually done through remittances and occasional phone calls. In addition to caring for their families, some of these women I spoke to talked about caring for themselves, as they are “done” taking care of their children who are now adults. “Care of the self” means spending more on themselves – their health and well-being – as well as focusing on their own savings.
Moreover, transnational care-giving also entails the inevitability of loss, particularly for migrants with aging parents and kin. They also have health concerns such as memory loss, dementia, and the loss of life itself. These older Filipinas experience the deaths of their parents and other kin while living away from their homeland. Yvette, a lady in her sixties who recently lost her father, shared that her brother in the Philippines told her that they cannot physically comfort her as she is in Japan and that she should “just pray and leave everything to God.” She added that she did not feel like celebrating Christmas this year because of her father’s death.
Another significant concern that these older migrant women face is the decision to remain in Japan or to return home to the Philippines. Research shows that some women in this situation find it challenging to return home due to factors such as their husband’s health or the need to ask for their husband’s permission to travel home.[5] For some, the decision to remain in Japan is because of their families, particularly their children, in Japan.
Currently, the Japanese government is trying to address need to incorporate migrants as it balances the economic need for foreign workers with the reality of an increasingly diversifying society. While policies in the name of “multicultural co-existence” (tabunka kyousei) are in place at the local government level, these policies now need to shift their focus from solely on cultural difference to emphasize that long-term, elderly migrants have the same needs and face the same dilemmas as do citizens.
Johanna O. Zulueta is an associate professor of Sociology at Soka University. She is the author of Transnational Identities on Okinawa’s Military Bases: Invisible Armies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Her main research area is on migration in East Asia and issues related to ethnicity, gender, citizenship, perceptions of home, and aging. She can be reached at: zulueta@soka.ac.jp.
References
Baldassar, L. Baldock, C. V., and Wilding, R. 2007. Families Caring Across Borders: Migration, Ageing, and Transnational Caregiving. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Heisei 2018-nenban Koureishakai Hakusho (White Paper on the Aging Society). 2018. Accessed November 23, 2019: https://www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/whitepaper/w-2018/html/gaiyou/s1_1.html.
Piquero-Ballescas, M. R. 1992. Filipino Entertainers in Japan: An Introduction. Foundation for Nationalist Studies.
Satake, M. and Da-anoy, M. A. 2006. Firipin-Nihon Kokusai Kekkon: Ijuu to Tabunka Kyousei (Filipina-Japanese Intermarriages: Migration, Settlement, and Multicultural Coexistence). Tokyo: Mekong Publishing.
Suzuki, N. 2007. “Filipino Boxers and Hosts in Japan: The Feminization of Male Labor and Transnational Class Subjection.” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 5 (4): 1-21.
Takahata, S. 2008. “Zainichi Firipin-jin to Karei: Nagoya no Koureisha Guruupu no Tegakari toshite.” Kokusai Kaihatsu Kenkyuu Fooramu 37: 59-75.
We Forum. 2019. “What Fast-Aging Countries Such as China Tell Us about Our Economic Future.” Accessed November 23, 2019: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/what-ageing-china-and-japan-teach-us-about-our-economies/.
Zairyuu Gaikokujin Toukei 2018-nendo (Statistics on Foreigners in Japan). 2018. Accessed November 23, 2019: https://www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00250012&tstat=000001018034&cycle=1&year=20180&month=24101212&tclass1=000001060399.
Notes
[1] World Economic Forum 2019; Cabinet Office White Paper 2018.
[2] Ministry of Justice, Japan.
[3] Ballescas 1992; Suzuki 2007; Satake and Da-anoy 2006.
[4] Baldassar, et. al. 2007.
[5] Takahata 2008.