Exit from the stalemate? : The introduction of migrant care workers in Japan, Korea, and Italy

This paper explores policy developments over the issue of migrant care workers (MCWs) in Japan, Korea, and Italy. These three countries have a lot of problems common to "familialistic" welfare regimes but have implemented a variety of policies regarding the introduction of MCWs. For the past two decades, Italy has introduced an enormous number of MCWs in both formal and informal ways. While Japan has opened only a small window, Korea has paved the road toward the introduction of MCWs in a rather drastic way.To explain the variety among MCW policies, this paper focuses on strategic decision making in an institutional opportunity structure demarcated by labor market policy, immigration policy, and welfare policy. The paper hypothesizes that the variety of policies for introducing MCWs in Japan, Korea, and Italy should be explained by the combination of two variables : the regulation of financing care services by MCWs and the upward mobility of MCWs.The comparative analysis shows that the more regulated the mode of financing Long-term care (LTC) and the higher the level of mobility in the career paths of MCWs, the more the demand and supply of MCWs will respectively be crowded out. The outcome should shed light on the importance of focusing on the strategic interaction between the demand side (e.g., the elderly, the governments of the receiving countries) and the supply side (MCWs). Therefore, it will contribute to a better understanding of the nexus between welfare politics and migration politics in a globalizing political economy