To Care in a Changing Climate: Impact of Climate Change to Care Migration in Asia

As a region with an enormous ageing population, the flow of migrants who perform care work is prominent in Asia. Migrants from less affluent countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have been flocking to more affluent countries such as Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to fulfil care needs. According to the ILO (2015), out of 23.7 million care or domestic workers in the Asia and Pacific regions, 3.34 million are migrants.

Despite the high numbers of migrant care workers already attending to care needs, the condition of care work in Asia is getting increasingly dire. The region is already grappling with a severe lack of care needs being met: It is estimated that to sufficiently fulfil care needs in the region, an additional 8.2 million more care workers is needed (Sato et. al, 2022). Furthermore, this need was previously put under strain during the COVID-19 pandemic where the virus disproportionately affects vulnerable care recipients, thus further increasing care needs. The question then, is how will care migration fare under another crisis namely climate change? This article looks at previous migrant patterns and motivations between East and Southeast Asia to argue that climate change will make the current care crisis in Asia even more complex.

Contextualizing Care

Care can be broadly defined as “all the supporting activities to make, remake, maintain, contain and repair the world we live in” (Dowling, 2022). In a narrower sense, care has several characteristics. First, care work can be both direct and indirect. Direct care work refers to care work with direct contact to people being cared for, while indirect care work refers to care activities such as cooking or cleaning. Second, care work can be paid or unpaid. In both cases, care work is a highly undervalued sector due to its perceived lack of skill needed to perform the work, not to mention the gendered and racial aspects of this work (Dowling, 2022). As a result, care work is still categorised as informal work, which in turn opens the door for care workers to be underpaid, exploited, and abused without any substantial intervention from the state.

This article will focus on paid direct care work by Southeast Asian migrants in East Asia countries. There are several justifications as to why this article zooms in towards East and Southeast Asia specifically. First, care needs are disproportionately high in Asia, specifically in East Asia. East Asia’s population is ageing rapidly, and it is happening at a significantly faster rate than other regions. Citing Peng (2017), by 2030, out of the projected 1.4 billion increase in the ageing population across the world, 31.3% will be in East Asia.

Second, the ethics of care in Asia is strong, though the responsibility of care is steadily more displaced. Asia, in general, still holds the belief that the care needs of the elderly should be met by younger family members instead of being relegated to market solutions (Peng, 2017). However, young people in present-day Asia often prioritise work over family. This trend is accompanied by the decreasing taboo towards outsourcing care. Thus, the responsibility of care is now displaced from younger family members to migrants from less affluent regions in Southeast Asia. This demand made way for a budding “migrant broker” business which is supported by Southeast Asia governments’ regulations, thereby steadily facilitating more care migration to East Asia (Peng, 2017).

Despite the high importance of care migration in East Asia, the sector is still mired with problems both in meeting care demand and ensuring migrant care workers rights. For example, though regulation on care work across the region varies, care work remains largely under regulated. This  presents challenges in ensuring consistent standards and protections within the sector. The lack of regulation ultimately contributes to care workers being abused and underpaid, which creates a high turnover rate in the sector, making it hard to provide long-term care (LTC) (Peng, 2017). The problem is even more dire under conditions of crisis where vulnerabilities in systems of care are further exposed. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a good case. During the pandemic, the elderly people in Japan make up not only 20.2% of confirmed cases, but also 83% of total deaths (Suzuki, Morikawa & Wakabayashi, 2020). The same goes for Indonesia, where nearly half of deaths are of the elderly (UNFPA, 2022). On the other hand, providing intra-regional care was difficult as borders between countries were tightened. The case of COVID-19 poses an important question to our readiness for crises. This article now turns to the climate crisis as its primary focus.

The Climate Crisis and Its Impact on Care Migrants

The world faces a triple planetary crisis where climate change, worsening pollution and biodiversity loss are happening simultaneously. In its wake, the global population is more often ill-prepared to understand the impact this crisis might bring thus making our response to the crisis reactionary and incomprehensive. This article attempts to chart how the current crisis will affect care work in Asia by focusing on three aspects of care: the demand, supply and conditions for the provision of care.

First, climate change will cause an uptick in demand for care work. Climate change is projected to increase the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, heighten the vulnerability of communities due to climate-related disease outbreaks and worsen food insecurity, all of which will lead to an uptick in the number of people needing care (MacGregor, S, Arora-Jonsson, & Cohen, 2022). It is not hard to see this projection turn into reality. All across East and Southeast Asia, communities have seen unusual cases of severe flooding, extreme heat and cyclones. Citing the World Meteorological Organization (2024), regarding water-hazard-related disasters specifically, over 9 million lives are directly affected in Asia. Climate-related outbreaks such as malaria are also on the rise in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan (Zain, Sadarangani, Shek & Vasoo, 2024). Thus, considering the interconnectedness of our climate system, the uptick in demand for care work will not only be felt by East Asia as the care migrant receiving region, but also by sending countries in Southeast Asia.

Second, there will be more outflow of migrants to perform care work, contributing to a “care drain” in the sending country. Though migration motives are non-linear – meaning that it is hard to pinpoint to one phenomena as the exact reason why people choose to migrate – climate change is considered a significant threat multiplier for reasons to migrate (OECD, 2023). Climate change leads to the increase of both rapid and slow onset disasters, making swathes of regions uninhabitable or markedly deteriorating communities’ quality of life. All of this can become the undeniable push factor of migration in the region. The Southeast Asia lower Mekong region is projected to be the hotspot for climate-induced outmigration, with a projected 3.3 to 6.3 million new climate migrants between 2023 and 2050 (Soo-Chen & McCoy, 2023). Though the outflow might help provide care needs for East Asians, it is important to keep in mind that Southeast Asia care needs might also increase due to climate change. Thus, the outflow of climate migrants might create a shortage of care workers or a “care drain” in Southeast Asia countries.

Third, care work will be done in an increasingly more precarious condition leading to the decrease of quality of care. Incidents of extreme weather, water scarcity, and energy and fuel shortages will rise, which will obligate care work to be done in unsafe conditions (MacGregor, S, Arora-Jonsson, & Cohen, 2022). As direct care work is not only physical but also relational, the quality of care work rests upon the physical and mental well-being of the carers. Climate change might put carers under such physical and mental toll in conducting their care work that the quality of care will inevitably worsen.

Caring in a changing climate

This article is by no means an exhaustive account of how climate change will affect care work in Asia. With climate change worsening and with little to no political will to change the status quo, the effect of climate change will continue to be more unpredictable, and the ways it will affect our lives might be even more complex. However, previous crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and current trends of climate change have given us a peek at how care migration will look in the years to come: the demand for care will continue to increase, a shortage of care workers will ensue and providing care will be more arduous as well as dangerous. Solving this issue requires a collective effort, one that can begin with understanding the importance of care and the urgency of the climate crisis.

References

Dowling, E. (2022). The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We End It? Verso Books.

MacGregor, S., Arora-Jonsson, S., & Cohen, M. (2022). Caring in a changing climate: Centering care work in climate action.

OECD. (2023, November). What role for migration and migrants in climate adaptation? OECD Migration Policy Debates. https://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/What-role-for-migration-and-migrants-in-climate-adaptation-MPD-32-November-2023.pdf

Peng, I. (2017). Transnational Migration of Domestic and Care Workers in Asia Pacific. International Labour Organization. https://www.ilo.org/media/425986/download

Sato, A., Dempster, H., Leab, D., Nguyen, H., & Hoang, L. (2022, May 9). Migrant Care Workers in Asia: How Has COVID-19 Affected Them, and What’s Next? Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/migrant-care-workers-asia-how-has-covid-19-affected-them-and-whats-next

Soo-Chen, K., & McCoy, D. (2023, February 28). Climate displacement & migration in South East Asia. ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/viet-nam/climate-displacement-migration-south-east-asia

Suzuki, M., Morikawa, M., & Wakabayashi, M. (2020). Healthcare challenges for elderly people in Japan during COVID-19 pandemic. Deloitte. https://www2.deloitte.com/jp/en/pages/life-sciences-and-healthcare/articles/hc/en-hc-covid19-02.html

UNFPA. (2022, September 30). Older persons in Indonesia most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. UNFPA Indonesia. https://indonesia.unfpa.org/en/news/older-persons-indonesia-most-vulnerable-during-covid-19-pandemic

World Meteorological Organization. (2024, April 23). Climate change and extreme weather impacts hit Asia hard. Wikipedia. https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/climate-change-and-extreme-weather-impacts-hit-asia-hard

Zain, A., Sadarangani, S. P., Shek, L. P., & Vasoo, S. (2024). Climate change and its impact on infectious diseases in Asia. Singapore medical journal, 65(4), 211–219. https://doi.org/10.4103/singaporemedj.SMJ-2023-180