Women, Work and Care in the Asia-Pacific

This book provides a comparative analysis of the social, economic, industrial and migration dynamics that structure women’s paid work and unpaid care work experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Each country-focused chapter examines the formal and informal ways in which work and care are managed, the changing institutional landscape, gender relations and fertility concerns, employer and trade union responses and the challenges policy makers face and the consequences of their decisions for working women. By covering the entire region, including Australia and New Zealand, the book highlights the way different national work and care regimes are linked through migration, with wealthier countries looking to their poorer neighbours for alternative sources of labour. In addition,the book contributes to debates about the barriers to women’s participation in the workforce, the valuation of unpaid care, the gender wage gap, social protection and labour regulation for migrant workers and gender relations in developing Asia.

1. Work/Care Regimes in the Asia-Pacific: A Feminist Framework, Elizabeth Hill, Marian Baird and Michele Ford Part I: Familial/Informal Care Regimes 2. China: The Reconfiguring of Women, Work and Care, Minglu Chen, Jie Hao and Marian Baird 3. Malaysia: Balancing Paid and Unpaid Work, Vicki Crinis and Alifa Bandali 4. Singapore: Contradictions in the Work/Care Regime, Lenore Lyons 5. Indonesia: Middle-class Complicity and State Failure to Provide Care, Michele Ford and Nurchayati 6. The Philippines: Pressures for Change in the Work/Care Regime, Ligaya Lindio-McGovern 7. Cambodia: Managing Work and Care in a Post-Conflict Context, Kristy Ward 8. Bangladesh: Class, Precarity and the Politics of Care, Dina Siddiqi and Hasan Ashraf 9. India: Economic Inequality and Social Reproduction, Elizabeth Hill and Rajni Palriwala 10. Sri Lanka: Working Realities and Gendered Fictions, Matt Withers Part II: Familial/Formal Care Regimes 11. Australia: The Care Challenge, Alexandra Heron, Rae Cooper and Gabrielle Meagher 12. New Zealand: Caring for Women or Women Caring? Katherine Ravenswood and Belinda Smith Part III: Predominantly Familial Care Regimes 13. Japan: From Social Reproduction to Gender Equality, Reiko Ogawa 14. South Korea: Work, Care and the Wollstonecraft Dilemma, Joohee Lee 15. Timor-Leste: Mixed Messages on Work and Care, Michele Ford 16. Papua New Guinea: Work and Care in a Subsistence Economy, Jane Parker, James Arrowsmith and Ann Boyd

Marian Baird is Professor of Gender and Employment Relations and Director of the Women and Work Research Group at the University of Sydney Business School, Australia. Michele Ford is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies and Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia. Elizabeth Hill is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, Australia.