Nepali Migration to Japan: Pathways, Costs and Decision-making

The paper contributes to the as-yet-small body of literature on Nepali migration to Japan, by examining the experiences of aspirant migrants enrolled at the Japanese language institutes in Nepal. It specifically examines Nepali youth’s purpose of migration to Japan, costs of migration, sources of funds to pay for migration, and role of social networks in the overall migration process, including decisions about the selection of language institutes and the migration pathways to pursue. Aspirant migrants to Japan tend to be younger and with higher education on average compared to workers migrating to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Malaysia, the top destinations of Nepali workers. The Japan aspirants come from households with significantly higher than average income and have strong social networks in Japan. The social networks of family, friends, and relatives strongly influence the decisions in every major step of the migration process, from the selection of Japan as a migration destination to the choice of colleges and employers in Japan and language institutes in Nepal. Migration to Japan for education is costly, with most student migrants in the sample spending or expecting to spend about NPR 1–1.5 million (ca. USD 7650 to 11,500) to go to Japan. The expected costs for labour migration significantly varied among respondents, with some expecting to go for free while the others expecting to pay up to NPR 0.5 million (c. USD 3825).