Abstract

East Asia has manifested the contradiction between production and reproduction and an increasing number of migrants are invited to undertake care and domestic work. The paper frames migrant workers as “care workers” in order to situate them within each social policy context and unpacks the generic term “migrant care workers” at the national, regional and local levels. It first introduces the concept of the migration and care regimes, and examines the different construction of care workers in Japan, Taiwan and Korea. Secondly, it compares the two groups of welfare states in the Regional Care Chain. Finally, it examines the idea of an ideal care worker and discusses its gendered and racialised bodily constructions within the intimate sphere.