Cash Only: Negotiating the Exclusionary Labourscape of Migrant Care Work in South Korea

• In Event: 549 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Immigrants and Labor Markets

Abstract

This paper explores the informal strategies that Korean-Chinese migrant care workers use to improve their working conditions in South Korea, exemplified by their reliance on a cash economy, and hesitance to engage in formal transactions. Drawing upon ethnography and in­depth interviews conducted with migrant care workers between 2013 and 2015, I argue that Korean-Chinese migrant care workers are excluded from legal protection on three intersectional planes: 1) the discrimination against Chinese citizens in migration laws; 2) the exclusion of care/domestic workers from labour protection; and 3) the exclusion of migrant workers from specific laws on care and domestic work. Being ‘outside the law’ not only means being deemed ‘illegal’ migrants but also being treated as someone who is exempt from the protection of the law, fair working conditions and the institutionalised processes of regulating the industry. As a result, understanding of the laws that exclude, rather than protect, them from unjust working conditions and from claiming citizenship in the host society has formed distinct subjectivities of migrant women. Studying these unique subjectivities and strategies provides “stronger objectivity” not only for lawmakers, but also for scholarship that study gender, work and social movement. I argue that the conditions of informality have been favourable to migrant care workers because the lack of legal control has allowed them to negotiate with their employers on more equal ground. While the gains from their negotiations are significant, migrant care workers still need to reconcile their experiences of work and migration in a wider formal economy.

Author

• Sohoon Lee, University of Sydney