Abstract
In this paper, I discuss my interview findings with various stakeholders in the care systems of Singapore and Taiwan using the theoretical resources from feminist care ethics scholarship. I analyse the narratives of care work gathered from informant groups like domestic employers of ‘migrant maids’ who provide informal home care services, family caregivers and NGO activists to contrast how childare and eldercare is treated by households in both locations. My purpose is to spark critical conservations about the hierarchies of care work in social reproduction. For example, one key question that emerges is: Why is childcare valued more highly over eldercare in feminist agendas, and what implications does the omission of eldercare by Marxist Left activism raise for Confucian cultures like Singapore and Taiwan? Using NVivo software, I conduct a qualitative open coding of twenty interviews spread across the aforementioned respondent groups. I generated the key themes based on my informants’ experiences with the care system, emphasising their word choices and quoting them where relevant. Ultimately, I find that for the quality of care provision to improve, deep structural changes at the level of individual mindsets about gendered divsios of labor in the household are necessary. At a social policy level, I suggest rethinking the sustainability of relying on ‘migrant maids’ for home care. The widespread antagonism directed at foreigners for society’s unmet care needs is misplaced. Upon closer inspection, patriarchal capitalist structures that devalue both the elderly citizenry and transient workers are what the people need to lobby against.
Presenters
Lynn Yu Ling NgPhD Candidate, Political Science, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Social and Cultural Perspectives on Aging
KEYWORDS
Childcare, Eldercare, Confucianism, Feminist Care Ethics, Foreign Caregivers, Patriarchal Capitalism
