Most wealthy countries rely on imported labor to a significant degree, especially for low-paid, insecure, unpleasant work. How do we understand the continuing practice of importing labor, especially given efforts to maintain a demographic ethnic/racial status quo? The question becomes more compelling when we consider that some advanced countries have not imported labour on a large scale. This book constitutes a major turn in migration studies for its insistence that we must begin to pay attention to wealthy countries with very few immigrants. If we want to understand why some countries have many foreign workers, we must also explain why other countries have very few. Israel and Japan are exemplary cases of each type: in recent decades, Israel has imported large numbers of workers, while Japan has mostly refrained from using foreign workers to resolve labor shortages. The book accounts for their different approaches with a highly innovative theory drawing on ideas from sociology, political science, and development studies.