Having examined migrants’ practices at the workplace and their career progression or stagnation in Singapore and Tokyo, this chapter zooms in on their connections with place and people in the host cities and how these factors affect staying or onwards mobility. With this approach I wish to caution against ‘integration’ as the ultimate goal. To put it differently, this book does not conceptualise society as something static of which newcomers could become a part. Each of the two Asian Pacific migrant receiving societies, or the smaller scale of their capital cities – Singapore and Tokyo – consists of multiple segments of the population. These segments are not necessarily exclusive and might overlap, but the divisions that differentiate classes and social strata, occupational groups, native and foreign workers, minorities and the like cannot be ignored. Thus, the question arises how the EU Generation interact with these different segments of each city’s population and how and where they position themselves within the fragments of the migrant receiving society.

In order to understand this question, I use the concept of embeddedness, which in migration studies captures how migrants find ‘their own position in society and feeling a sense of belonging to and participating in that society’ (Davids and van Houte, 2008, p 174). The term ‘embedding’ – rather than embeddedness – highlights the processual nature at stake and emphasises a process that is never completed and might be un-done. Furthermore, the more active and subtle notion of ‘differentiated embedding’ stresses attachment and belonging as an outcome of ‘interconnected temporal, spatial and relational processes’, which are not linear and involve multiple embedding, dis-embedding and re-embedding practices over different time and space (Ryan, 2018, p 235).

As such, the concept of differentiated embedding identifies how migrants may negotiate attachment and belonging in different social and structural settings. It also considers place-specific opportunities for embedding and the socio-economic, cultural and physical particularities of migrants’ local contexts. Indeed, Halfacree and Riviera (2012) emphasise that migrants are ‘contextual’ subjects with their biographies changing with time and with place, along with their priorities, needs and desires.