Abstract
This chapter contextualizes the issues discussed in this volume by first outlining the similar ways in which care has been transformed across East Asia. These include the unprecedented degree of demographic change relating to low fertility rates and population aging, increasing numbers of women entering the labor market, changing forms of families, and the expansion of paid care. It then elaborates divergent strategies through which provisions of care have become commodified, including the introduction of migrant care workers, who have emerged at the forefront of the uneven process of globalization. Finally, it presents the summary of the remaining chapters.
Notes
- 1.
These are widely known traditional proverbs expressing concepts of womanhood in East Asia.
- 2.
The Maintenance of Parents Act in Singapore states that the responsibility for childcare lies with parents. Taiwan also has a similar provision on the obligation to demonstrate filial piety.
- 3.
According to ILO (2016, 34), intraregional migration accounted for 62 million people or 60% of the entire number of international migrants in 2015. Numbers of Asian migrants to Europe and the United States were 20 million and 17 million, respectively.
- 4.
For example, foreign entertainers in Japan have been equated with sex workers, and these stereotypes continue, leading to the stigmatization of certain nationals. The same racial branding applies to domestic workers. See Guevarra (2014), “Supermaids.”
- 5.
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) proposed a change in Article 24 of the constitution to strengthen and uphold the moral value of family members helping each other.
- 6.
In Vietnam , the word Oshin became synonymous with domestic worker.
References
Adams, K.M., and S. Dickey (eds.) 2000. Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Anderson, B. 2000. Doing the Dirty Work?: The Global Politics of Domestic Labour. London: Zed Books.
Anderson, B., and I. Shutes (eds.) 2014. Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Anderson, W. 2007. Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Baird, M., M. Ford, and E. Hill. 2017. Women, Work and Care in the Asia-Pacific. New York, NY: Routledge.
Boris, E., and J.N. Fish. 2015. “Decent Work for Domestics: Feminist Organizing, Worker Empowerment, and the ILO.” In Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers, edited by D. Hoerder, E. van N. Meerkerk, and S. Neunsinger, 530–552. Leiden: Brill.
Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong. 2016. “Foreign Domestic Helpers by Nationality and Sex.” Retrieved from: http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/FileManager/EN/Content_1149_49.xls
Chan, R.K.H., L.-R. Wang, and J.O. Zinn. (eds.) 2014. Social Issues and Policies in Asia: Family Ageing and Work, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Chatterjee, P. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Choy, C.C. 2003. Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Constable, N. 2007. Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers. Ithaca, IL: Cornell University Press.
Ehrenreich, B., and A.R. Hochschild (eds.) 2002. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York, NY: Henry, Holt & Company.
England, P., M. Budig, and N. Folbre. 2002. “Wages of Virtue: The Relative Pay of Care Work.” Social Problems 49(4): 455–473.
Fraser, N. 2016. “Contradictions of Capital and Care.” New Left Review 100: 99–117.
Garcia, M.R. 2015. “Child Slavery, Sex Trafficking or Domestic Work? The League of Nations and Its Analysis of the Mui Tsai System.” In Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers, edited by D. Hoerder, E. van N. Meerkerk, and S. Neunsinger, 428–450. Leiden: Brill.
Guevarra, A.R. 2014. “Supermaids: The Racial Branding of Global Filipino Care Labour.” In Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics, edited by B. Anderson and I. Shutes, 130–150. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hochschild, A.R.2000. “Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value.” In On The Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, edited by W. Hutton and A. Giddens, 130–146. London: Jonathan Cape.
Hochschild, A.R. 2002. “Love and Gold.” In Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by B. Ehrenreich, and A.R. Hochschild. New York, NY: Henry, Holt & Company.
Holliday, I. 2000, “Productivist Welfare Capitalism: Social Policy in East Asia.” Political Studies 48: 706–723.
Huang, S., B.S.A. Yeoh, and M. Toyota. 2012. “Caring for the Elderly: the Embodied Labour of Migrant Care Workers in Singapore.” Global Networks 12(2): 195–215.
International Labour Organization (ILO). 2013 “Domestic Workers Across the World: Global and Regional Statistic and the Extent of Legal Protection.”, Geneva: ILO. Retrieved from: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_173363.pdf
International Labour Organization (ILO). 2016. “Decent Work for Migrant Domestic Workers: Moving the Agenda Forward.”, Geneva: ILO. Retrieved http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---migrant/documents/publication/wcms_535596.pdf
Jenson, Jane. 1997. “Who cares? Gender and welfare regimes.” Social Politics, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 182–187.
Kashyap, B. 2015. “Who’s in Charge, The Government, The Mistress, or the Maid? Tracing the History of Domestic Workers in Southeast Asia.” In Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers, edited by D. Hoerder, E. van N. Meerkerk, and S. Neunsinger, 346–365. Leiden: Brill.
Kamimura, Y. 2015. Fukushi no Ajia: Kokusai Hikaku kara Seisaku Koso he [Welfare in Asia: From International Comparison to Policy Design]. Nagoya: Nagoya University Press. (in Japanese)
Kilkey, M., H. Lutz, and E.P. Mollenbeck. 2010. “Introduction: Domestic and Care Work at the Intersection of Welfare, Gender and Migration Regimes: Some European Experiences,” Social Policy & Society, 9(3): 379–384.
Kwon, H.-j. 2009. “The Reform of the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia.” International Journal of Social Welfare 18, S12–S21.
Kwon, H.-J. (ed.) 2005. Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lan, P.-C. 2002. “Among Women: Migrant Domestics and Their Taiwanese Employers Across Generations.” In Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by B. Ehrenreich and A.R. Hochschild, 169–189. New York: Holt.
Lan, P.-C. 2006. Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lan, P.-C. 2010. “Cultures of Care Work, Carework across Cultures.” In Handbook of Cultural Sociology, edited by J.R. Hall, L. Grindstaff, and M.-C. Lo, 438–448. Oxon: Routledge.
Meerkerk, E. van N., S. Neunsinger, and D. Hoerder. 2015. “Domestic Workers of the World: Histories of Domestic Work as Global Labor History.” In Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers, edited by Dirk Hoerder, Elise van N. Meerkerk, and S. Neusinger, 1–24. Leiden: Brill.
Mies, M. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, London: Zed Books.
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan. 2015. Kaigo Jinzai no Kakuho ni tsuite [Ensuring Care Workforce], 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/05-Shingikai-12601000-Seisakutoukatsukan-Sanjikanshitsu_Shakaihoshoutantou/0000062879.pdf
Ministry of Justice, Japan. 2016 Zairyu Gaikokujin Tokei Tokeihyo [Statistics on Foreign Residents]. Retrieved from: http://www.moj.go.jp/housei/toukei/toukei_ichiran_touroku.html
Ministry of Justice, Korea. 2015. Korea Immigration Service Statistics, 2015. Retrieved from: https://www.immigration.go.kr/doc_html/attach/imm/f2016//20160615257980_1_1.pdf.files/PDFBook.html
Ministry of Labour, Republic of China, 2016. Foreign Workers Statistics. Retrieved from: http://statdb.mol.gov.tw/html/mon/i0120020620e.htm
Ministry of Manpower, Singapore. 2016. Foreign Workforce Numbers. Retrieved from: http://www.mom.gov.sg/documents-and-publications/foreign-workforce-numbers
National Health Insurance Service, Korea. 2015. Long Term Care Insurance Statistical Yearbook, 2015. Wonju: National Health Insurance Service.
National Statistics Republic of China (Taiwan), 2016a. Fertility Rates of Childbearing Age Women. Retrieved from http://www.stat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=15409&CtNode=3622&mp=4
National Statistics Republic of China (Taiwan), 2016b. Resident Population by 5-Year, 10-Year Age Group. Retrieved from http://www.stat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=15408&CtNode=3623&mp=4
Oishi, N. 2001. Women in Motion: Globalization, State Policies and Labour Migration in Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Orloff, A.S. 1993. “Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States.” American Sociological Review 58: 303–328.
Parrenas, R.S. 2003. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press.
Peng, I. 2012. “Social and Political Economy of Care in Japan and South Korea.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 32(11/12): 636–649.
Razavi, S. 2007. The Political and Social Economy of Care in a Development Context, Gender and Development Programme Paper Number 3, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Retrieved from: http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/2DBE6A93350A7783C12573240036D5A0/$file/Razavi-paper.pdf
Satri, R. 2015. “Historians, Social Scientists, Servants and Domestic Workers: Fifty Years of Research on Domestic and Care Work.” In Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers, edited by D. Hoerder, E. van N. Meerkerk,. and S. Neunsinger, 25–60. Leiden: Bril.
Sainsbury, D. (ed.) 1999. Gender and Welfare State Regimes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Takenobu, M. 2013. Kaji Rodo Harassment [Domestic Work Harassment]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. (in Japanese)
Teo, Y. 2014. Interrogating the Limits of Welfare Reforms in Singapore, Development and Change 46(1): 95–120.
Tronto, J. 2013. Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice, New York, NY: New York University Press.
Uzuhashi, T. 2005. “Fukushi Kokka no Nanou Model to Nihon” [Southern European Model of Welfare State and Japan]. In Post Fukushi Kokka to Social Governance [Post Welfare State and Social Governance], edited by J. Yamaguchi, T. Miyamoto, and M. Tsubogo, page number. Kyoto: Mineruba Shobo. (in Japanese).
Watson, J.L. (ed.) 1980a. Asian and African Systems of Slavery. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Watson, J. L. 1980b. “Transactions on People: The Chinese Market in Slaves, Servants, and Heirs.” In Asian and African Systems of Slavery, edited by J.L. Watson, 223–250. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wong, J. 2004. Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
World Bank. 2016. World Development Indicators, 2016. Retrieved from: http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi
World Economic Forum. 2016. The Global Gender Gap Report. Retrieved from: http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/
Yeoh, B.S.A., S. Huang, and J. III Gonzalez. 1999. “Migrant Female Domestic Workers: Debating the Economic, Social and Political Impacts in Singapore.” International Migration Review 33(1): 114–136.
Yuval-Davis, N. 1997. Gender & Nation. London: Sage.
Zimmerman, M.K. J. Litt, and C. Bose (eds.) 2006. Global Dimensions of Gender and Carework. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ogawa, R., Oishi, A.S., Chan, R.K.H., Wang, LR. (2018). Introduction: Situating Gender, Care, and Migration in East Asia. In: Ogawa, R., Chan, R., Oishi, A., Wang, LR. (eds) Gender, Care and Migration in East Asia. Series in Asian Labor and Welfare Policies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7025-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7025-9_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-7024-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-7025-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)