I had a look at the statistics of Japanese Living Abroad by Country. It is interesting to compare the figures with the Registered Foreigners in Japan by Nationality.

Western countries

In 2002 there were 60,000 Americans (USA) and Canadians, 49,000 Europeans (+6,000 Russians), and 14,000 Australian and New Zealanders living in Japan. However there were :

- 359,000 Japanese living in North America (including 127,000 permanent residents, i.e. 35% of the total)
- 154,000 Japanese living in Europe (including 32,000 permanent residents, i.e. 25%) +1,600 in Russia
- 57,000 Japanese living in Australia and New Zealand (incl. 24,000 permanent residents, i.e. 42%).

We can see a disproportionately high number of Japanese living in Western countries, compared to Westerners living in Japan. This is all the more strange as Japan's population is about 40% that of North America, 25% that of Europe, and well 6x bigger than Australia and N-Z.

In other words, that means that there are 6x more Japanese living in the USA and Canada, than Canadians and US citizens living in Japan; 3x more Japanese living in Europe than Europeans in Japan; 4x more Japanese living in Australia or New Zealand than the reverse.

Of course, the tendency is reversed for non-Western countries.

Non-Western countries

In 2002, there were 1,371,000 Asians living in Japan, but only 193,000 Japanese living in Asia. It's even more dramatic when we look at direct neighbours. For 625,000 Koreans living in Japan, there were only 18,000 Japanese living in Korea (35x less !). The most shocking thing is that only 24 Japanese were permanent residents in Korea ! Then, for the 424,000 Chinese living in Japan, there were only 64,000 Japanese in China, less than 1000 of whom were permanent residents.

The relation with Africa is more balanced, but almost inexistent. Only 9,000 Africans live in Japan, and only 6,000 Japanese live in Africa.

What can we learn from these numbers ?

My interpretation is that most of the Japanese living in Asia are there for business, as at least 90% of them are not permanent residents (0.1% in South Korea, 1.5% in China, 3.9% in Taiwan, 5% in Singapore, 6% in Malaysia, 9% in India, 10% in Indonesia).

It is clear that the vast majority of people from developping countries living in Japan are there for economic reasons - even the Nikkei (people of Japanese descent) from South America.

The exception might be the Koreans, most of whom were actually born and raised in Japan, and whose parents or grandparents were brought to Japan during WWII. The number of Koreans in Japan was actually higher in 1980 than now. In comparison, there are now 10x more Chinese or 20x more Filipinos in Japan now that in 1980. In 1980, 90% of the Asians (including Middle East and India) living in Japan were Korean. Nowadays they only make up 40% of the total.

The most interesting and maybe surprising thing in this data is the disproportionate number of Japanese people living in Western countries.

This is ironic as I have heard so often Japanese people that had the "impression" that Western countries were "so dangerous" compared to Japan. Strange that they should say that as I have never heard of more hideous and vicious crimes in all my life than what I could see in a few months in the news in Japan. Lots of stories of children killing other children or their parents, or other over-emotional murders committed neighbours or family members ("husband cut in piece by wife found in house fridge after months"; "housewife intentionally poisoising dozens of people at a curry party", etc.). These are much scarier and nastier crimes than anything I have heard in Europe (but the US as quite a few of them too).

So what pushes over 600,000 Japanese to live in Western countries, a third of them permanently ? Usually such a migration happens for economic reasons, but it's hard to believe for Japan. Could it be cultural or societal then ? I often heard my wife say that life in Japan is so stressful because of social conventions and "narrow-minded" people.

What do you think ?