Japan's Demographic Revival: Rethinking Migration, Identity And Sociocultural Norms

Rethinking Migration, Identity and Sociocultural Norms

Stephen Robert Nagy

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9789814678896
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

Japan's Demographic Revival shifts discussions about employing immigration as the "best" or "sole" solution to assuaging Japan's demographic quagmire to a more systematic approach that identifies structural, organizational and cultural impediments that contribute to Japan's (and other countries') declining demographic situations. This edited volume also sheds light on the plethora of changes required to produce a demographically sustainable Japan.Part One includes chapters explaining the endogenous, ethnocultural and structural obstacles that link ethnocultural understandings of citizenship and nationality. Part Two consists of chapters that provide insight into the societal barriers that exist in Japan to address demographic issues. Part Three shifts its focus away from identifying and analyzing the structural, organizational and cultural factors towards chapters that are policy oriented, linking existing policies as contributing factors behind Japan's demographic challenge.Japan's Demographic Revival shifts discussions about employing immigration as the "best" or "sole" solution to assuaging Japan's demographic quagmire to a more systematic approach that identifies structural, organizational and cultural impediments that contribute to Japan's (and other countries') declining demographic situations. This edited volume also sheds light on the plethora of changes required to produce a demographically sustainable Japan.Part One includes chapters explaining the endogenous, ethnocultural and structural obstacles that link ethnocultural understandings of citizenship and nationality. Part Two consists of chapters that provide insight into the societal barriers that exist in Japan to address demographic issues. Part Three shifts its focus away from identifying and analyzing the structural, organizational and cultural factors towards chapters that are policy oriented, linking existing policies as contributing factors behind Japan's demographic challenge.Graduate students and researchers interested in Japanese Studies.

Part 2

Societal Challenges: Gender, Religion, and Incentive

CHAPTER 4

Demographic Change and Migration of Care Workers: State, Care Facilities, and Migrants*

REIKO OGAWA

Kyushu University

The literature on migration and care largely focuses on domestic workers working in private households and tends to center around “exploitation” and “agency.” This chapter provides an ethnographic account of a more complex understanding of the issue by focusing on migration of caregivers under the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between Japan and Southeast Asian countries. It examines how the nexus of the migration regime and the care regime are shaping the experience of the actors, and the way in which the state, care facilities, and the migrant caregivers traverse, intersect, and create distinct social processes. It also elaborates on the transnational appropriation of the concept of care and how the migrants are transforming the space of caregiving through application of cross-cultural concepts and practices toward caregiving. It discusses the ambiguous nature of the configuration of globalization of care in Japan and questions the sustainability of the migration project under the EPAs.

Introduction

Ariyoshi Sawako’s felicitous novel Kōkotsu no Hito (The Twilight Years) typified the aging society in the early 1970s by exposing the daily life of elderly with dementia whose lives suddenly became canny in the eyes of the ordinary people. The protagonist in his 80s forgets not only what he had eaten, but also whether he had eaten at all, and constantly demands food. He roams around without a sense of direction and cannot control his bodily excretion, causing trouble for the family. The novel describes the interactions between him and his family, especially Akiko, the daughter-in-law who had to live in the same house. Akiko gets troubled, frustrated, and exhausted by the unpredictable behavior of her father-in-law, but she persistently responds to the situation and eventually sees a new life in the grumbling old man. In the 1970s, due to the residual nature of the welfare state, elderly care was predominantly undertaken as the unpaid work of family members, especially women. Care facilities were places where only the poor elderly would be placed, so the wives, daughters, and daughters-in-law in the private sphere largely undertook the responsibility for care.

In 1950, the aging population was 4.1 million or 4.9 percent of the total population. After 50 years in 2000, the aging population jumped up to 22.1 million, consisting of 17.3 percent of the total population. Recognizing the fact that it is no longer possible for the elderly to be cared for by families alone, social policy has shifted the site of care from the private sphere to the public sphere through the intervention of the state and the market via the introduction of long-term care insurance (LTCI, kaigo hoken) in 2000. Although a substantial portion of care is still being undertaken at home as unpaid work, currently it has become common for people to enter into a care facility when they grow old and frail.

Soon after the implementation of LTCI in 2001, the number of elderly who need assistance in activities of daily living (ADLs) was 2.8 million. Within less than 10 years, in 2008, it increased to 4.5 million, among which 3.8 million, or 85 percent, were above 75 years old.¹ These 3.8 million represent 29.2 percent of the age cohort above 75 years old.² The population above 75 will continue to grow and in 2030 it is projected to reach 22.6 million.³

Assuming that the health condition of the elderly may not drastically change during the next decades to come, if we adapt the current ratio of 29.2 percent to the age cohort above 75 years old, then in 2030, it can be estimated that at least 6.6 million elderly will need to be cared for without even taking into account those who are under 75 years old.⁴ In addition, due to the low fertility rate, the productive age population will continue to shrink, and inviting the migrants to undertake care work is becoming one of the potential options to cope with the aging society. The political parties, including the Liberal Democratic Party and Democratic Party of Japan, business federations, independent advocates, and civil society have submitted a proposal and started to discuss their visions of immigration policies and institutions to cope with the demographic change.⁵

In the global economy, migrant women in many countries increasingly have undertaken care work and Japan is no exception to this, albeit on a much smaller scale.⁶ The establishment of the EPAs between Japan and Southeast Asia introduced the entry of nurses and caregivers from the Philippines and Indonesia to work in the Japanese care labor market. Between 2008 to 2014, more than 1,500 foreign nurses and caregivers⁷ arrived in Japan and after six months of Japanese language training,⁸ they started to work in hospitals and care facilities all over the country. Within several decades the space of care has not only shifted from the private to the public sphere, but it also has become increasingly globalized.

The literature on migration and care tends to be characterized by the dichotomy between “exploitation” and “agency.”⁹ Some point to the vulnerability of the migrant women in private households incarcerated and tasked with informal and unregulated work, which is described as “neo-slavery.”¹⁰ While concurring with this view, others emphasize more the agency of women through gaining independence and freedom and sending remittances to support their families.¹¹

Building on the scholarship on migration and care, this chapter aims to elucidate a complex and nuanced understanding of the situation against these dichotomies by focusing on the actors who actively participate in the formation of the globalization of care. The globalization of care in Japan is forged by the convergence of several actors, including the state, care facilities, and migrants, which are intertwined but carrying different interests and expectations. These actors are, however, shaped by the convergence of two regimes: the migration regime and the care regime under the EPAs. The chapter first examines how the nexus of the two regimes is providing a framework in which the globalization of care in Japan is situated. Secondly, it elucidates how different actors, such as the state, care facilities, and migrants, are responding to the globalization of care under the EPAs and analyzes the ways in which these actors traverse, intersect, and create distinct social processes. It also illuminates various ways in which the migrant caregivers are entering into, encountering, and sometimes departing from the care communities in Japan.

Thirdly, it discusses the transnational appropriation of the concept of care. The concept of care is deeply embedded in each specific context and subjected to change over time and space.¹² When the migrants cross borders, their concept of care becomes translated and transplanted into their workplaces and becomes a powerful tool in developing relationships with the care receivers. This chapter aims to offer an ethnographic account by focusing on the construction of the globalization of care that has become a testing ground for how Japan can build a society to live together with immigrants in this increasingly interconnected world.

Intersection between the Migration and Care Regime

Literature on migration has long pointed to a trend called the “feminization of migration,” where increasing numbers of women from developing countries migrate to work in developed countries to undertake feminized jobs, such as domestic helpers and nannies.¹³ Scholars have revealed the gender dimension of the political economy, which seemingly shifts the unpaid work of the native women to the paid work of the migrant women.¹⁴ In order to fill in the gap between the state capacity to provide care and the actual need for care, migrants from less developed countries became introduced in varieties of ways to developed countries,¹⁵ a process that can be called the “international division of reproductive labor.”¹⁶

Care work, which used to be confined within the domestic social welfare policy, can no longer be analyzed within the framework of methodological nationalism.¹⁷ The convergence between care work and migration has opened a new sphere of inquiry into how the migration will intersect or negotiate with the existing gender order.¹⁸ Considering the aging population in the North and the different levels of economic development in the South, the international mobility of care workers may continue in the foreseeable future.

However, these flows of migrants into the care labor market have been shaped not only by the global economy, but also by the policies and institutions of receiving countries, thus entailing country-specific patterns of inclusion and exclusion.¹⁹ In the case of Japan, the EPAs, which are first and foremost free trade agreements, facilitate the entry and migration of nurses and caregivers and are attached to it as components. In other words, the movement of care workers is included as a part of the free trade items without being situated as a part of the labor policy, immigration policy, or social welfare policy.

When the medical and social welfare organizations came to know that the migrant nurses might enter into their job market, the Japan Nursing Association (JNA) made a counterproposal that the influx of foreign nurses may further downgrade their working conditions and professionalism. The counterproposal stipulated that: (1) foreign nurses should pass the Japanese national license exam in order to work as nurses in Japan; (2) foreign nurses should have good language proficiency in order to provide safe nursing care; (3) foreign nurses should be employed under the same working conditions as Japanese nurses; and (4) there should be no mutual recognition of the license. This largely defined the framework of migration of care workers under the EPAs.²⁰

Based on this proposal, the passing of the national license exam within a limited period of time became a condition for the migrant nurses and caregivers and, if they fail, they are not allowed to stay in Japan any longer.²¹ In order to make the migrants pass, the receiving institutions are mandated to provide educational support in the Japanese language and help them to prepare for the exam. While the EPAs opened a path for foreign workers to be integrated into the Japanese medical and social welfare labor market under the same conditions as Japanese workers, the ambiguity of the aim of this migration project and the difficulties in acquiring language skills and preparing for the exam have brought confusion and pressure to both the care facilities and the migrants.

In addition, migration of care workers is not only shaped by immigration policies, but also how the care regime has been defined in each specific context. Compared to nursing, which is universally established as a profession with a longer history,²² long-term care as a paid work emerged as a relatively new occupation responding to the aging society in developed countries. Caregiving (kaigo) is an occupation that embodies particular characteristics reflecting the social values and economic conditions of how elderly care ought to be in each country, and these features differ from country to country. The expertise, qualification, and citizenship issues for migrant caregivers are complex and diverse, and often care work becomes conflated with domestic work. For example, in Taiwan, approximately 200,000 migrant caregivers are engaged in long-term care work, comprising 60 percent of the care workforce providing the most flexible and affordable care predominantly in private households.²³ The migrant care workers work under three-year contracts that can be extended for a maximum of 12 years and they are not entitled to apply for citizenship. The agency fees that the migrants shoulder are high and put the migrants in a vulnerable position.²⁴ The live-in caregivers are not protected under labor law and are tasked to undertake all kinds of domestic work, and so incidents of human rights violations have become a major concern.²⁵

Regarding qualifications, migrant caregivers in Taiwan start working after short-term training by the recruitment agency, which includes language and culture classes.²⁶ The long-term care facilities provide the caregivers with a word list that states necessary terminologies for care in Indonesian, English (for Filipinos), Vietnamese, and Chinese, and they are not expected to be fluent in Chinese (Mandarin). In many countries, ca...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• Editor
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Japan’s Demographic Revival: Rethinking Migration, Identity, and Sociocultural Norms
• Part 2 Societal Challenges: Gender, Religion, and Incentive
• Part 3 Ways Forward
• Conclusion
• List of Contributors
• Index