| Abstract: | This work describes recent trends in East Asian migration and their economic effects. The great waves of emigration of the past have largely ceased from Japan and the "dragons" of East Asia, and all have become countries of illegal immigration, return of emigrants, and legal entry of professionals. All the countries except Hong Kong have maintained strict immigration policies in order to protect their traditional and homogeneous societies and the employment and income of their own citizens. But despite active encouragement of industrial displacement to countries with cheap and abundant manpower, the labor shortages in these countries have become so severe that they have had to tolerate increased immigration. There is little evidence that immigrants have taken the jobs of natives or caused their incomes to decrease. They appear to complement shrinking local labor forces in these countries of drastically reduced fertility. The annual growth of the active population is predicted to decline from 523,000 in the 1980s to 227,000 in the 1990s in Japan, from 231,000 to 149,000 in Taiwan, and from 400,000 to 300,000 in Korea. Full employment was achieved in Japan in the early 1960s, in Taiwan in the late 1960s, in Hong Kong in the early 1970s, and in Korea in the late 1980s. Full employment was the major factor prompting relaxed immigration controls in these countries. The foreign workers are concentrated in less skilled jobs in dirty or dangerous industries that are shunned by the local population. Opponents of liberalized immigration policies cite the supplementary expenditures for infrastructure and services necessitated by the workers as well as for integration of workers desiring longterm settlement, especially if they are of different ethnicity. No definitive conclusions can be drawn about the overall positive or negative impact of immigration in East Asia without specifying the perspective from which the analysis is made--economic or social, short or long term, from the employee's viewpoint or the employer's. The consequences of importing manpower must be studied in relation to possible alternatives. |
