All in the family? Migrants, nationhood, and care regimes in Asia and North America

Abstract

If a ‘migrant in the family’ is the prevalent pattern of care work in Mediterranean societies today, what are the emergent patterns in other familialistic societies, and what factors are driving or impeding them? We address these questions by examining the cases of Japan, Korea, Canada, and the US. Our analysis shows that while care work patterns in all these four countries resemble those of the Mediterranean countries in their increased use of migrant care workers, they also differ from the Mediterranean and among themselves, partly because of their varying conceptualizations of nationhood. We argue that concepts of nationhood are significant but not all-determining in efforts to reconcile care work and migration regimes.

Care and caring: interdisciplinary perspectives on a societal issue of global significance

“…They include the World Health Organization [WHO] (Brodsky et al, 2003;WHO, 2015); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] (Colombo et al, 2011), World Bank (Heleniak and Canagarajah, 2013) (Lechner and Neal, 1999;Perrons et al, 2007;Kröger and Yeandle, 2013); comparative analysis of European long-term care systems (Ranci and Pavolini, 2013;Deusdad et al, 2016); and concepts and values in care and social policy (Anttonen et al, 2012;Michel and Peng, 2012). We intend to publish new comparative work on these and other themes within care and caring, and expect the journal to contribute to significant expansion of scholarship in this field.…”

“…More latterly, care has also become important in many countries as a traded service, operating either within formally regulated labour markets or as part of 'grey', unregulated, and informal Comparative analysis in scholarship on care and caring has begun to explore what can be learned by contrasting developments in different countries and in different types of welfare system. Examples include work on reconciling paid work and unpaid care (Lechner and Neal, 1999;Perrons et al, 2007; Kröger and Yeandle, 2013); comparative analysis of European long-term care systems (Ranci and Pavolini, 2013;Deusdad et al, 2016); and concepts and values in care and social policy (Anttonen et al, 2012;Michel and Peng, 2012). We intend to publish new comparative work on these and other themes within care and caring, and expect the journal to contribute to significant expansion of scholarship in this field.…”

Gendered Migrations and Global Social Reproduction

“…In familial welfare states such as Italy there is still very poor provision of formal services for very young children, although in Spain this had been increasing more rapidly. In East Asian countries too there has been a notable increase in provision for children over two years as well as for those under two years (Michel and Peng 2012). In China and Singapore there is also a well-developed system of public facilities for small children (Ochiai 2009: 64).…”

“…In the USA, 46 per cent of domestic workers were foreign-born, this proportion is partly reduced because of a strong racial component to the US-born population itself 10 (American Community Survey 2005, cited in Burnham and Theodore 2012. Whilst there are initiatives to increase the number of migrants and co-ethnics for eldercare, as in Japan and Korea which have recently implemented schemes for longterm care, childcare is seen as unsuitable for foreign workers (Michel and Peng 2012).…”

Return of the Nanny: Public Policy towards In‐home Childcare in the UK, Canada and Australia

“…In both Southern Europe (Bettio et al . ) and Asia and North America (Michel and Peng ), it is argued there has been a shift from familialist care regimes to ‘migrant‐in‐the‐family’ care regime.…”