COMPLETION REPORT

Fen-Ling Chen
National Taipei University
Department of Social Work,
Subject of Research Project: Governing Migration and Care Work in Japan and Taiwan
This article has examined policy responses to rising migrant care workers in Taiwan and Japan from theviewpoint of governance, applying them as an alternative tool to the perspectives of globalisation and caring.
Globalisation usually prompts a denial to give those migrant care workers full citizenship. They are always “guestworkers” who are under a limited period of stay, no freedom of movement, no permission of entrance for otherfamily members, a restriction to live-in domestic care work, and partial labor protection. Alarcon, Kaplan, andMoallem (1999) called this phenomenon as “contradictory regulatory practices,” in which master states constrain
the integration of migrants.
In this study, we collect historical data and current policies for migrant caregivers in both countries, andinterview the related key persons for decision-making and the host families in Taiwan to see how they manage theirgovernance in daylily life. Finally, the research would like to discuss to what extent the migrant care policy changes
the original welfare regimes in both countries.
Many countries followed the mode of guest workers employed by Germany in the 1890s (Tseng, 2005). In thecase of Taiwan, the government has no motivation to improve the skill level of migrant care workers and no intention
to issue them permanent residence. The responsibility of governance is completely left to the employers, with thestate’s role remaining passive. At the early stage of opening the labour market to migrant workers, NGOs havespoken loudly to protect the rights of local attendants in Taiwan. Some NGOs, nowadays, become the new bodies
of governance over part-time migrant care dispatch workers. They hope to keep the salary growth rate of care
workers low, because they themselves are now also employers. There were originally many political stakeholders
with different viewpoints, but now they seem to agree with using reasonable ways to utilize migrant care workers.
In Taiwan’s case, from the governance perspective, we found the withdrawal of the public-private dichotomy. Thestakeholders were actively involved in the policy-making of migrant care workers; thus the policies on migrant
workers changed accordingly.
To cope with the purpose of free trade with Southeast Asian countries, Japan has undertaken an “inclusivepolicy” for migrant care workers. Controlled by the Japanese government, migrant care workers are well trained interms of language ability and caring skills. They are regarded as potential citizens and granted permanent residence
once they pass the national qualification exam of care workers. The main governance bodies are the government
and the host organisations, which have earned the trust of Japanese society for refusing to open up the market toprivate agencies. As this state-sponsored migrant policy is extremely costly versus hiring local care workers, its value
is doubtful. In Japan’s case, from a governance perspective, the Japanese government is almost fully responsible forthe governance of migrant care workers, by switching care responsibility from the family to the state. The publicprivate dichotomy remains unchanged.

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Publication of the Results of Research Project:
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