Abstract
Against the global trend toward increased use of foreign care workers, Japan and South Korea stand out as two countries that continue to resist their intake. In this chapter, Peng explains why, despite serious shortages of care workers, these two countries have maintained highly restricted immigration policies toward migrant care workers. She argues that their resistance can be explained by a combination of social, cultural and institutional factors that are shaping the two countries’ care, migration and employment regimes.
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Notes
- 1.
The ILO defines “domestic work” as “work performed in or for a household or households” (ILO 2012, 24). It is widely acknowledged that much of the domestic work involves reproductive work, and a significant amount of that relates to direct or indirect “care.” In this chapter, I use care work to include domestic work as well as direct personal care work performed within households and work in community and institutional settings.
- 2.
In Hong Kong and Singapore most family-based care workers are classified as “domestic workers” or “domestic helpers.” These workers are employed in private homes, live with their employers, and perform, in addition to care work, other household and other domestic chores.
- 3.
The levy was re-introduced under different format in late 2013.
- 4.
By center-based care I mean not home-based child care in individual private homes.
- 5.
In both Japan and Korea, there is no formal immigration employment category for “care work”. In the case of Japan, nurses and care workers enter the country through the EPA category, which is not a formal immigration category. In the case of Korea, there is a more informal care market outside of LTCI within private and semi-public institutions such as hospitals for the elderly where Joseonjok women are being employed.
- 6.
In Japan, orphanages were separated from public child care centers under a different policy stream within child welfare.
- 7.
They are institutionalized in terms of the way in which services are organized (e.g. the use of care assessments and care managers, the standard fee schedule for care services set by the government, etc.), not in terms of the form of care. In fact, much of the LTCI services in both countries are in the form of domiciliary care provided by home-helpers and visiting nurses.
- 8.
The pressure to accept Joseonjok was particularly great under the more pro-reunification oriented political regimes, such as those of Kim Dae-Jung (1998–2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008). Under the conservative and pro-business presidents, Lee Myung-Bak (2008–2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013–current), the government has been actively recruiting high-skilled workers while trying to manage entry of low-skill workers and crackdown on illegal immigration.
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Peng, I. (2017). Explaining Exceptionality: Care and Migration Policies in Japan and South Korea. In: Michel, S., Peng, I. (eds) Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_9
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