Searching for the Nexus Between the Care Regime and Migration Regime

The discussions on the nature of welfare states in East Asia tend to focus on the link between the economic development and social policy or emphasize on the heavy reliance on the family to provide care. However, what has not been explicitly discussed is the role of migrants in providing long term care. As the population aging accelerates care work has been increasingly undertaken by migrants who constitute an integral part of the care workforce in East Asia.

The presentation will compare Japan and Taiwan which receives migrants from the same sending countries in Southeast Asia namely Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam and situate the globalization of care in East Asia within the nexus of care regime and migration regime. The paper argues that even though Japan and Taiwan receives migrants from the same countries, the ways in which the migrants are situated within the two regimes reveal different construction of care work as well as different entitlement of migrants. It aims to unpack the otherwise naturalized notion of care work and suggests to perceive migrants as a ‘regional common good’ in order to raise both the status of care work and the migrants at the same time to ensure the safety and security of the elderly and migrants alike.