The Institutional Factors Affecting the Growth of Korean Migrant Care Market and Sustainability in Long-Term Care Quality

Abstract

Due to an increase in the ageing population, the migrant care market now includes new home-based long-term care (LTC) under the national long-term care insurance. This study underlines a perspective of the Korean migrant care market in terms of long-term care quality in South Korea. Thus, the study explored the institutional factors that restrict and promote the migrant care workers (MCWs). Two migrant workers groups were analysed: migrant care workers in home-based long-term care versus nursing hospitals. Designed as an in-depth policy-oriented content analysis, this study used three types of data including interviews with eight participants (MCWs, the nursing hospital manager, and the LTC home manager), organisational documents (employment eligibility criteria), and institutional texts (law, administration rules, etc.). Our results indicate that the factors hindering employment of MCWs in home-based LTC were visa status, qualification requirements (the National Qualified License), wage regulation policies, and social security obligations. A promoting factor was jobs that hired on an on-call basis. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the growth of the migration care market and sustainability in LTC quality depend on the policy directions of the Korean long-term care insurance.