Theoretical and Empirical Bases for Reconceptualizing Care, Work, and Migration

Care is a basic human activity and need, but how societies talk about care shapes how those needs are defined and met. Who is expected or permitted to provide it? How are care and its providers valued?

In this project, we compare and contrast how people and policymakers in North America and the Asia-Pacific are addressing care as a crisis that calls for both policy and personal solutions.

Canada, the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore all propose and arrange different solutions to their caregiving shortages. We also examine the politics of care in countries that are sending migrant caregivers: the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

How does the global migration of people performing care work intersect with migration policies, care policies and the different ways that work and employment in care industries is structured? How do policies in wealthier counties that are receiving workers impact the politics of care where workers in poorer countries leave to work abroad?

This team 1) collects and analyzes a wide range of comparative socio-economic, political, and demographic data, including data on formal care available through public and private sectors, and informal caregiving by friends; and 2) compares and evaluates different government policies on care related migrations and what that means for individuals and families. In the case of Asia, we also examine data pertaining to the increasing use of foreign brides as quasi-family caregivers.

Findings are then synthesized to develop a new framework for analyzing and mapping the varied landscapes of care, and how these are shaped by migration and employment programs and policies, as well as by particularities and commonalities of history and discourse.

Refereed publications

• Ito Peng. (2018). Culture, Institution, and Diverse Approaches toCare and Care Work in East Asia. Current Sociology.
• Ito Peng. (2018). Shaping and Reshaping Care and Migration in East and Southeast Asia. Critical Sociology.
• Ito Peng. (2016). Testing the Limits of Welfare StateChange: Immigration Policy Reforms in Japan. Social Policy & Administration. 50(2): 278-296.
• An, Miyoung and Ito Peng. (2015). “Diverging Paths? A Comparative Look at Childcare Policies in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan”. Social Policy & Administration.
• Catherine M. C. Cheng and Hae Yeon Choo. (2015). “Women’s Migration for Domestic Work and Cross-Border Marriages in East and South East Asia: Reproducing Domesticity, Contesting Citizenship” Sociology Compass, 9(8): 654-667. GMC RESEARCH SNAPSHOT of this article available here.
• Emiko Ochiai and Leo Aoi Hosoya eds. (2014). Transformation of the Intimate and the Public in Asian Modernity, Leiden: Brill.
• Peng, Ito. (2017). “Transnational Migration of Domestic and Care Workers in Asia Pacific”. International Labour Organization.
• Peng, Ito. (2016). “Testing the Limits of Welfare State Change: The Slow-moving Immigration Policy Reform in Japan”. Social Policy & Administration, 50(2):278-295.
• Peng, Ito. (2014). “The Social Protection Floor and the “New” Social Investment Policies in Japan and South Korea.” Global Social Policy, Published online: May 27, 2014, p. 1-17; in print December 2014, 14(3): 389-405.
• Peng, Ito. (2014). “Social Investment Policy in South Korea”, in Emiko Ochiai and Leo Aoi Hosoya eds. Transformation of the Intimate and the Public in Asian Modernity, Leiden: Brill. pp. 234-253.
• Peng, Ito. (2013). “Kankoku ni okeru Shakaitoshi Seisaku” (Social Investment Policy in South Korea), in Emiko Ochiai ed. Shinmitsuen to Kokyoen no Saiheisei (Transformation of the Intimate and the Public Space), Kyoto: Kyoto University Press. pp. 243-264. (In Japanese)
• United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy Development. (2018). Expert Group Meeting on Care and Older Persons: Links to Decent Work, Migration and Gender.
• commissioned papers and reports
• Peng, Ito (2017) “Elderly Care Work and Migration: East and Southeast Asian Contexts”, Report to the UN Expert Group Meeting on Care and Older Persons: Links to Decent Work, Migration and Gender, UN DESA, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 5-7 December 2017. https://www.un.org/development/desa/ageing/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2017/11/Peng-UN-Expert-Group-Meeting_Dec-5-7-final-Paper_4Dec.pdf
• Peng, Ito (2017) “Social policies and the care economy in Japan and South Korea: Taking stock of the opportunities and challenges for women’s economic empowerment”, Report to UN Commission on the Status of Women 61st Session, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 17 March 2017.
• Peng, Ito and Susan Yeandle (2017) Eldercare policies in East Asia and Europe: Mapping policy changes and variations and their implications, New York, NY: UN Women. http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2017/12/eldercare-policies-in-east-asia-and-europePeng, Ito. (2017) Transnational Migration of Domestic and Care Workers in Asia Pacific, Geneva: ILO. http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/labour-migration/publications/WCMS_547228/lang–en/index.htmIto Peng and James Tiessen (2015) An Asian Flavour for Medicare: Learning from Experiments in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Ottawa: MacDonald-Laurier Institute. www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/MLICanadasHealthcareCrisisSeries5_r4.pdf

Op-Ed articles & Non-refereed Publications

• Peng, Ito (2018). “Why Canadians should Care about Global Care Economy”, Op-Ed, Open Canada.Org: international affairs explained, 16 March 2018. https://www.opencanada.org/features/why-canadians-should-care-about-global-care-economy/ .
• Ito Peng Yi-Chun Chien. (2018). Not all in the same family: Diverging approaches to family policy in East Asia. Handbook of Child and Family Policy.
• Ito Peng. (2017). Elderly Care Work and Migration: East and Southeast Asian Contexts. United Nations (Department of Economic and Social Affairs).
• Ito Peng Susan Yeandle. (2017). Eldercare policies in East Asia and Europe: Mapping policy changes and variations and their implications. United Nations Women.
• Ito Peng. (2017). Transnational Migration of Domestic and Care Workers in Asia Pacific. International Labour Organization (ILO).
• Ito Peng. (2017). “Social policies and the care economy in Japan and South Korea: Taking stock of the opportunities and challenges for women’s economic empowerment”, Report to UN Commission on the Status of Women 61st Session, United Nations Headquarter. United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
• Ito Peng. (2017). Explaining Exceptionalities: Care and Migration Policies in Japan and South Korea. Gender, Migration and the Work of Care: A Multi-Scalar Approach to the Pacific Rim.
• Peng, Ito (2016). “Japan and its immigration policies are growing old”, East Asia Forum, June 7, 2016. http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/06/07/japan-and-its-immigration-policies-are-growing-old/#comments.
• Ito Peng. (2016). The expansion of social care and reform: Implications for care workers in the Republic of Korea. Women, gender and work (Vol. 2). (2)
• Ito Peng. (2016). How Welfare State Policy Contributes to Gender Equality and Inequality: A Comparative Perspective. Inequality and the Future of Canadian Society.
• Yang, Kyung-Eun. (2016). Economic Integration or Segregation? Immigrant Women’s Labor Market Entrance and Their Support Service Utilization in South Korea. PhD thesis.
• Ito Peng. (2015). The ‘New’ Social Investment Policies in Japan and South Korea. Inclusive Growth, Development and Welfare Policy: A Critical Assessment.
• Ito Peng Melissa Moiser. (2015). Toronto no wakamono ni miru Career to Kazokukeisei” (“Career and Family Formation Patterns of Toronto Youths). Kokusai Hikaku – Wakamono no Career: Nihon, Kankoku, Italia, Canada no koyo-gender.
• Ito Peng Caitlin Cassie. (2015). Older Immigrant Women’s Health: From the Triple Jeopardy to Cultural Competency. Women’s Health: Intersections of Policy, Research and Practice. (2)
• Ito Peng. (2014). Social Investment Policy in South Korea. Transformation of the Intimate and the Public in Asian Modernity.
• Ito Peng. (2014). Kankoku no Shakai Toshi Seisaku. Shinmitsu-ken to Koyo-ken no Saikousei.

In progress

• Chun, Jennifer, Ito Peng, Heidi Gottfried (eds.). Edited Volume in progress. The Global Migration of Gendered Care Work.
• Davison, Jeremy and Ito Peng. “Problems of Multiculturalism: Immigration Policy Debates in Japan”.
• Michel, Sonya and Ito Peng (eds.) Gender, Migration and the Work of Care: A Multi-Scalar Approach to the Pacific Rim (Palgrave: forthcoming)
• Peng, Ito. “Shaping and Reframing Care and Migration: with Focus on Asia Pacific.”
• Peng, Ito and Yi-Chun Chien. “Cases from East Asia”, Handbook of Child and Family Policy, Guðný Björk Eydal and Tine Rostgaard (eds.), Edward Elgar.
• Piper, Nicola (ed.). Special Journal Issue in Progress on Marriage Migration in Asia Pacific.