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Reform Initiatives in Health-Care Migration to Japan: A Discussion of Their Political Dimensions
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Vogt, LMU München
For several decades now, the health care sector in Japan has been experiencing a severe labor shortage. The gap between a growing demand for health care services and a shrinking pool of domestic workers continues to widen. The introduction of a migration avenue for international health workers to Japan in the mid-2000s is generally understood to be the result of the ever-mounting strains, which the rapid population aging put on the labor market. As this was the first explicit opening of the domestic labor market to a workforce that so far has not been categorized as “skilled workers”, it is fair to conclude that this reform constitutes a paradigm shift in Japan’s migration policy.
In this presentation, I will sketch out Japan’s demographic development, and its implications on the health care sector in more depth. I will focus on health workers in elderly care, as they are a group that is particularly high in demand on the Japanese labor market. Subsequently, I will introduce the original migration avenue for health workers, which opened in 2008, and, despite the several revisions it has seen ever since, fails to draw a sufficient number of international health workers to Japan. Consequently, over the past years, migration flows of health workers to Japan have diversified. These more recent migration avenues include initiatives by business actors, such as utilizing the system of intracompany transfer and also educational institutions recruiting international students. In addition, policy reforms, such as opening the international trainee system to health workers, and the introduction of a specified skilled workers program contributed to the diversification of migration avenues to Japan. I will conclude with a contextualization and evaluation of the various migration avenues that are currently available to international health workers aiming for Japan as their destination.
Since 2019, Gabriele Vogt has held the Chair of Japanology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. From 2016 to 2019, she was a Visiting Professor at Waseda University, Graduate School for Asia Pacific Studies (GSAPS). In March 2018, she served as a Visiting Scholar at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ). During 2016-2017, she was a Visiting Professor at Kyushu University, Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society, and in 2013, she held the same position at Chuo University's Law School. From 2009 to 2019, she was a Professor of Japanese Politics and Society at the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg. Previously, between 2005 and 2009, she worked as a Research Associate at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), where she also lectured in Political Science at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University (2006-2009), and served as Deputy Director of DIJ (2007-2008). Her postdoctoral career included fellowships at the East Asia Program of Cornell University (2003-2004), funded by DAAD and the Fritz-Thyssen Foundation, and at the Faculty of Law, University of the Ryukyus in Fall 2004, funded by JSPS. She completed her doctoral studies in Japanology at the University of Hamburg between 1998 and 2002, with a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation (1999-2002). Her research stay as a scholarship holder at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (1999-2000) contributed to her PhD in Oriental Studies from the University of Hamburg, which she received in 2002 with magna cum laude. From 1997 to 2001, she was a Lecturer in Japanese Language at the Forum for the Language and Society of Japan e.V., and a Lecturer in Japanology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2000-2001). Her academic journey began with studies in Japanology, Political Science, and Sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1992 to 1998. She was a scholarship recipient of the German National Academic Foundation (1995-1998) and studied Political Science at the Faculty of Law, Kyushu University as a Monbushō Scholar (1995-1996). She graduated with a Magistra Artium from the Faculty of Philosophy at LMU Munich in 1998.
This presentation is based on: Vogt, Gabriele and Sian Qin (forthcoming): International health workers. In: Takahashi, Shin and Yasuko Hassall Kobayashi (eds.): The Handbook of Global Migration and Japan. London: Sage.Location: LMU Japan-Center, Oettingenstraße 67, Room L155
The event will take place in hybrid form!
Location: LMU Japan-Center, Oettingenstraße 67, Room L155
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