Embedded Coexistence: Social Adaptation of Chinese Female White-Collar Workers in Japan

In Japan, Chinese female white-collar workers have emerged as a rapidly growing social group. Unlike traditional female migrants, high-skilled women exhibit more autonomy and strategy in their interactions with mainstream society. Traditional immigrant theories do not apply to their patterns of social adaptation. The paper draws on qualitative research with 38 Chinese female white-collar workers working in Tokyo after graduating from Japanese colleges. It illustrates their performance and strategies in adapting to Japanese society and explores how their decision-making process is shaped. The findings show that they exhibit a selective adaptation: They self-identify as “permanent sojourners”—they are eclectic, but inclined to maintain a cultural cognition ordered around their homeland culture, and they have multiple contacts across ethnic groups and reserve cultural differences in social interactions. Furthermore, this mode of adaptation results from the interaction of three factors: individual rational choice, the mutual pressure of the in-group and the out-group, and the national policies and historical issues between China and Japan. This paper argues that the migration patterns of different migrant groups should be interpreted in light of the subjectivity of migrants, taking into account their initiative, human capital, gender, and ethnicity. This study enriches the study of international female migration and adds to the practical research on social adaptation patterns among immigrants.