November 15, 2022 | 5:00-6:30PM | Online - Zoom Webinar
Speakers: Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes, University of Shizuoka; Sachi Takahata, University of Shizuoka
Discussant: Pei-chia Lan, National Taiwan University
Speaker 1| Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes, Ph.D., Professor, University of Shizuoka
Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) as Forerunner and Benchmark: Revisiting the EPA Program in the Proliferation and Diversification of Foreign Nurses and Care Workers in Japan
Abstract
Japan began to receive foreign nurses and care workers in 2008 from Indonesia under the EPA program (followed by the Philippines in 2009 and Vietnam in 2014). That marked a breakthrough in Japan’s migration policy, leading to the abolishment of the restrictions on the number of years of employment for foreign nurses in 2010, the establishment of a kaigo (care work) visa category and a kaigo subcategory in the Technical Intern Training Program visa both in 2017, and that of a kaigo subcategory in the Specified Skilled Worker visa in 2019. Before the EPA, there was some emotional opposition to the entry of foreigners into the nursing and care work fields among Japanese citizens, as they believed that the services could not be properly rendered by foreigners–––these fields require a high level of Japanese language proficiency, involve physical contact with patients/service receivers, and are “cultural.” However, over the past decade or so, acceptance of care work as a job for foreigners has spread, and nursing home operators are openly looking to Asian caregivers to help solve their chronic labor shortage. Indeed, the EPA programs triggered substantial changes in the practice of caregiving in Japan—development of a new field of Japanese language education for foreign workers and critical evaluation of Japanese manners of kaigo by foreign care workers with nursing backgrounds, to name a few. In addition, the EPA programs have produced role models for the government in its search for measures to promote foreign workers to settle in Japan and circular migration models as some of the EPA health professionals begin to settle in Japan for good and some of the returnees re-enter Japan to continue working in their profession. I argue that the EPA remains a significant social experiment mechanism and propose some improvements of the system based on the narratives of past and current EPA workers.
Speaker 2 | Sachi Takahata, Ph.D., Professor, University of Shizuoka
Filipino Marriage Migrants in Japan as Care Workers through Re-skilling
Abstract
Filipinos in Japan are known for being the majority among foreign care workers. As of October 2021, the largest number of health and welfare workers in Japan (mostly care workers), 14,704 (25.4%) out of 57,788, are Filipinos. This includes those with residence status for nursing care work (“EPAs” or certified care worker candidates under the Economic Partnership Agreement scheme, technical interns, specified skilled workers, and nursing care students), but the largest number are marriage migrants. They are those who entered the nursing care workforce through re-skilling. They came to Japan in their late teens or early twenties and had almost no opportunity to learn Japanese language systematically. After marriage, they did housework, raised children, cared for their parents-in-law, and worked part-time jobs (factory work, cleaning, etc.) for close to minimum wage. With the introduction of the long-term care insurance system in Japan in 2000, caregiver training programs for “middle-aged women” were held throughout Japan, and many Filipino marriage migrants began taking caregiver training designed for Filipinos and started working as caregivers in the mid-2000s. One of their motivations for entering the nursing care profession was to improve their social reputation, an attempt to overcome the labeling of Filipino women as “women who work in the nighttime.” However, in the nursing care field, these women faced many disadvantages, such as discrimination from Japanese staff and lack of information about benefit programs being offered at their workplaces. Another major challenge is that, compared to EPAs and technical interns, marriage migrants lack the time, resources, and Japanese language skills to pass the care worker examination, the higher qualification for nursing care.