Bringing class back in: the changing basis of inequality and the Korean minority in Japan

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between ethnicity and class in explaining the post-war experience of the Korean minority in Japan (zainichi Koreans) – Koreans who were taken forcefully, or migrated voluntarily, from Korea to Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–45) and settled in Japan after the Second World War and their descendants residing in Japan. Specifically, on the basis of statistical data and in-depth interviews, this study shows that the legal/institutional and socioeconomic structural changes in Japan for the past few decades, by decreasing ethnic inequality between Koreans and Japanese while increasing class inequality among Koreans, have made class more significant than ethnicity in understanding the inequality problematic of zainichi Koreans. Within the Japanese context this study reminds us that class still remains as a significant dimension of social inequality today.