International migration of domestic and care workers - ethnicity, gender and care

该研究项目旨在从理论上和经验上进行分析，最重要的是，说明在家庭/护理工作者的国际移徙中，主要由女工占据的种族、性别和护理工作交叉的实际情况。我们的项目的基本问题是研究的实际情况：(1)派遣国的经济条件差和一些结构性问题（南北问题和贫困的持续）导致国内/护理人员向国外驱逐；(2)接收国对外国和移民护理人员的制度和反应。在这个项目中，我们研究了斯里兰卡作为一个家庭/护理人员派遣国的案例。并且，我们研究了日本、美国、瑞典、新加坡、科威特和阿联酋作为接收国的案例。在这些情况下，日本和瑞典目前不是接收来自海外的家庭/护理工作者的国家。然而，还有另一代人在日本为第一代侨民（“在日朝鲜人”）从事照顾工作。瑞典一直接受通过“家庭统一”制度来到瑞典的政治难民和外国人。其中一些人现在承担了瑞典公共护理服务的重要组成部分。通过纳入这些案例，本研究项目从比以往任何时候都更新的角度审视了家庭/护理工作者的国际移徙；也就是说，它考虑了移民与福利制度的关系，福利制度是目前高度工业化国家的政治经济制度，由政府，市场和家庭组成。这一视角表明，目前仅在“民族国家=国民经济”的传统框架中理解的福利制度，已经包含了一些跨框架的因素，如多种族化，以及政治、经济和社会因素。

This research project aims to analyze theoretically and empirically, and, most importantly, to illustrate the actual conditions of the intersection of ethnicity, gender and care work that is largely occupied by female labourers in the international migration of domestic/care workers. The basic issues of our project are to research the actual situation of : (1)poor economic conditions of sending countries and some structural problems (North-South problem and continuation of poverty) which causes to push out domestic/care workers to foreign countries, and (2)the system and response to foreign and immigrant care workers in receiving countries.In this project, we researched Sri Lanka as a case of a sending country of domestic/care workers. And, we researched Japan, the USA, Sweden, Singapore, Kuwait and the UAE as cases of receiving countries. In those cases, Japan and Sweden are not currently receiving countries of domestic/care workers from overseas. However, there is another generation who engage in care work for the first generation of resident ("Zainichi") Koreans in Japan. Sweden has been accepting political refugees and foreigners who came to the country through "family unification" system. A number of these people are now taking on an important part of the public care service in Sweden. By including these cases, this research project examines international migration of domestic/care workers from a newer perspective than ever ; that is to say, it considers the migration in relation to the welfare regime that is currently the political economy regime in highly industrial countries and is consisted by government, market and family. This perspective indicates that the present welfare regime that is understood only in the traditional framework of "nation-state = national economy" is the system which already includes some elements crossing over the framework such as multi-racialisation, and political, economic and social elements.