Smart Q&A: Lan Pei-chia on Respected Agents and Foreign Experts: Employing and Training Migrant Care Workers in Taiwan and Japan

Biography

Lan Pei-chia is a world-renowned scholar in the sociology of gender, labor, migration, and globalization. She is a professor in the Department of Sociology at National Taiwan University and earned her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in the United States in 2000. Her dissertation was published as a book, "Cinderella of the Globalized World: Taiwan’s Migrant Domestic Workers and Emerging Affluent Employers" (2006), and received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from National Taiwan University and has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley; the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden, the Netherlands; New York University; and most recently, Harvard University. She also serves on the editorial boards of four academic journals.

AbstractProfessor Lan Pei-chia of National Taiwan University spoke with EAI about her research, "Negotiating Care Regimes and Ethical Differences: Employing and Training Migrant Care Workers in Taiwan and Japan." The study discusses how different cultural and political discourses in East Asian countries shape perceptions of migrant care workers from Southeast Asia. Professor Lan specifically details how contrasting dichotomies in Japan and Taiwan shape migrant care worker policies in both countries. Taiwan’s "invited worker" program treats migrant care workers as part of a household, performing the role of a surrogate family, but they are considered disposable labor, unprotected by labor standards laws, and ineligible for permanent residency. In contrast, under Japan’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), migrant care workers are treated as "foreign experts" who must pass rigorous certification processes and examinations. While these migrant care workers are guaranteed comparable wages and working conditions to Japanese nationals performing similar labor, their ability to function as true professionals is hindered by Japanese emphasis on racial and cultural differences. Professor Lan advises that Taiwan should reform its laws to ensure migrant care workers are protected by labor standards laws and recognized as professionals, while Japan should work to lower entry barriers and reduce cultural and racial biases. In conclusion, Professor Lan states that outsourcing labor does not necessarily degrade the quality of care, exposure to multiculturalism can broaden the exchange of traditional cultures, and the cases of both countries offer valuable lessons for South Korea in formulating policies for migration and care work.