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Managing Work and Care: Does Employing a Live-in Migrant Care Worker Fill the Gap? The Example of Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2021

Li-Fang Liang
Li-Fang Liang*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology in National Dong-Hwa University E-mail: lfliang@gms.ndhu.edu.tw
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Abstract

This article uses Taiwan as an example to examine how families manage work and care when the government and workplace provide limited support. Many Taiwanese households employ live-in migrant care workers to negotiate care responsibilities and adults’ paid jobs. Based on interviews with employers of live-in migrant care workers and workers, the findings demonstrate that daughters-in-law and occasionally daughters and sons become employers of live-in migrant care workers because of the limitation of public care services and lack of support they receive in seeking to combine paid work and family care responsibility. Even after employing migrant workers, women retain greater care responsibility in daily practices than their husbands. Hiring live-in migrant care workers also imposes risks to all parties involved in the processes of organising, coordinating, and providing care due to the uncertainty of care quality and the nature of care work.

Keywords

Migrant care workerscare workTaiwanmarketisationcare and work
Type
Article
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 22 , Issue 4: THEMED SECTION: Social Policy and the Climate Crisis , October 2023 , pp. 581 - 593
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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