When a man flies overseas: corporate nationalism, gendered happiness and young Japanese male migrants in Canada and Australia

Abstract

For more than 10 years, the number of Japanese women who live or emigrate overseas has been surpassing that of Japanese men. On the other hand, corporate workers who have been relocated overseas for shorter periods by their companies are predominantly Japanese men. What this means is that Japanese men are more bound to their homeland and, in this sense, more domestic than Japanese women. Especially since 2010, the state-driven development of “Global Human Resources” (GHR) has been intensifying the familiar associations between men, corporations, and going overseas, which re-impose the nationalistic, corporate-centric masculine norm on young men’s minds. This does not mean, however, that all men in Japan fit the corporate worker model, or that they are all content with Japanese society. Based on interview data of Japanese temporary residents in their 20s, 30s, and 40s in Canada and Australia, with special focus on the narratives of men, this paper elucidates how the meaning of going/being overseas for personal happiness is both gendered and classed.