Gender and Ethnicity in Japan's Health-Care Labor Market

Abstract

As the socialization, privatization, and internationalization of health-caregiving proceeds, in many industrialized nations the health-care business, which was often a gendered labor market to begin with, is now evolving as a labor market at the intersection of gender and ethnicity. This paper addresses a bipolar concept of invisibility -  and potential vulnerability - of female labor migrants through the lens of gender and ethnicity in the health-care labor market in Japan. It does so by introducing the roles both dimensions play in Japan's labor market in general and in the health-care sector in particular. Juxtaposing two different groups, namely longtime foreign residents of Japan entering the health-care business as a second career option on the one hand and newly arrived health-caregivers from Southeast Asia on the other hand, the paper first highlights the commonalities and differences in the way gender and ethnicity impact thestructures of life and work in Japan for the two groups. Secondly, the paper looks at the interlocking dimension of gender and ethnicity and provides some insights into the intersectionality of these factors in Japan's labor world.