Introduction: Situating Gender, Care, and Migration in East Asia

Abstract

This chapter contextualizes the issues discussed in this volume by first outlining the similar ways in which care has been transformed across East Asia. These include the unprecedented degree of demographic change relating to low fertility rates and population aging, increasing numbers of women entering the labor market, changing forms of families, and the expansion of paid care. It then elaborates divergent strategies through which provisions of care have become commodified, including the introduction of migrant care workers, who have emerged at the forefront of the uneven process of globalization. Finally, it presents the summary of the remaining chapters.