Against the global trend towards increased use of foreign female care workers\, Japan and South Korea stand out as tw o countries that continue to resist their intake. In this paper\, I explain why despite serious shortages of care workers\, these two countries have m aintained highly restricted immigration policies towards migrant care worke rs. I argue that their resistance can be explained by a combination of soci al\, cultural\, and institutional factors that are shaping their care\, mig ration and employment regimes. Their exceptionality in the face of global t rend reveals the strength of nationhood narratives and the importance of un derstanding global trends and how local factors can shape national policy r esponses to care and migration.
Ito Peng\, Ph.D. (London School of Economics) is a Professor of Socio logy and Public Policy\, and Canada Research Chair in Global Social Policy at the Department of Sociology\, and the School of Public Policy and Govern ance\, University of Toronto. She has written extensively on family\, gende r and social policies\, and social and political economy of care\, in East Asia. She currently leads a large international partnership research projec t entitled Gender\, Migration\, and the Work of Care funded by Social Scien ces and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The project brings together over 50 researchers and non-academic partners to examine how the reorganiza tion of care influences the global migration of care workers\, and how this in turn impacts family and gender relations\, gender equality\, government policies\, and global governance. She is a senior fellow of Asia Pacific F oundation of Canada\, and a Research Associate at United Nations Research I nstitute for Social Development (UNRISD) and UN Women. Her new book\, co-ed ited with Sonya Michel\, Gender\, Migration and the Work of Care: A Multi-S calar Approach to the Pacific Rim\, will be out in July 2017.