Living in the Gray Zone: State's in/Exclusion of Live-in Migrant Care Workers in Taiwan

Since 1992, in order to accommodate demographic necessities—including the increase in the number of double-salary families and the “graying” of the population in Taiwan as fertility rates decline and people live longer—the Taiwanese government has allowed the immigration of domestic workers and care workers as short-term contract labor force to shoulder the responsibilities of caring for older adults, people with disabilities, the sick, and younger children. In 2013, the number of migrant care workers in Taiwan reached a stunning 200,530 compared to 26,233 in 1997. In contrast to their counterparts working in the factories, live-in migrant care workers are not applied to Labor Standard Law that defines the rights of workers.

Relying upon institutional ethnography, in this essay I demonstrate how the specific lived experiences of live-in migrant care workers are shaped by the social organization of carework in Taiwan within the context of labor migration. This study investigates migrant labor policy in general and migrant care labor policy in particular to illustrate how the Taiwanese government includes migrant workers into private labor market to solve the shortage of care labor on the one hand. On the other, live-in migrant care workers are excluded from full legal protection by the Taiwanese government through its practice of state sovereignty.