1st Edition
Nurse Migration in Asia Emerging Patterns and Policy Responses
Nurse Migration in Asia explores the ever-increasing need for a larger nursing and healthcare workforce in Asia, where countries are undergoing rapid transformation, given economic globalisation and commercial expansion.
The book examines some of the major forces that play key roles in the changing dynamics of 21st century nurse and care worker migration in the Asian context; changes which inevitably have global implications. The country case studies range from India, China, Singapore to Japan and the Philippines. Common themes emerge: the rapid and unpredictable nature of nurse migration patterns, including the direction, purpose and frequency of migration; and the changes in professional training, regulation, and workforce policy. Forces causing these shifts include the changing population demography, global and regional economic fluctuations, and finally changing professional roles and gender dynamics. The book analyses the response to these transformations, and how countries adjust their immigration regulations, to attract foreign healthcare professionals. It concludes by highlighting the importance for all countries to remain vigilant as regards the exacerbating workforce crisis, and engage in developing coherent policy governance frameworks to manage healthcare workforce at the national or international levels.
A valuable addition to the literature, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of nursing, health and social care workforce studies, population demography, labour markets, gender and international migration studies, globalisation in health and Asian studies.
Introduction. Shifting the focus to Asia, Radha Adhikari and Evgeniya Plotnikova; Chapter One. Nursing education, employment, and international migration: The case of India, Hisaya Oda and Yoko Tsujita; Chapter Two. "Friendly relations" in troubled times: Tracing a decade of nurse migration from India to the UAE, Margaret Walton-Robert and Binod Khadria; Chapter Three. Nursing shortage and mobility in China: current development and future possibilities, Junhong Zhu, Huping Liu and Yingchun Zeng; Chapter Four. Career pathway, long-term settlement policies and stepwise migration aspirations of Philippine-educated nurses (PENs) in Singapore: lessons for policymakers, Reinaruth D. Carlos; Chapter Five. From nurses to care workers: Deskilling among Filipino nurses in Japan, Kat Navallo; Chapter Six. Dreams interrupted: Migrant Filipino nurses, gendered nationalism and ontological (in)security during the Covid-19 pandemic, Jean Encinas-Franco; Chapter Seven. An ageing society and a shrinking workforce pool: How Japan is preparing to tackle an impending demographic time-bomb, Radha Adhikari and Reinaruth D. Carlos; Conclusion. Nurse migration in Asia: current challenges and opportunities, Radha Adhikari and Evgeniya Plotnikova
Biography
Radha Adhikari is a Lecturer in University of the West of Scotland, UK. Her research focuses on international nurse migration, gender and global health inequality. Her latest research monograph, Migrant Health Professionals and the Global Labour Market: the Dreams and Traps of Nepali Nurses, was published in 2019, by Routledge.
Evgeniya Plotnikova is a teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She works for the Master of Public Health (MPH) online programme. Her research interests include health worker migration, bilateral labour agreements, and global governance in health.
"Nurse migration and mobility is both a personal decision based on individual circumstances, and a complex global policy issue. This book examines the complexities, gives new insights from Asia, and presents important messages for policy makers."
-James Buchan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty Health, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
"A rich analysis of gender, shortage, deskilling, inequality, discrimination and low morale among the migrant nursing workforce in Asian countries with compelling insights into the commercialisation of global health care and the power of agency to influence national and international policy and practice."
-Pam Smith Professor Emerita, University of Edinburgh, UK
"Nurse migration is a genuinely global phenomenon whose dynamics play out differently across regional contexts. This edited volume provides welcome new insights into these dynamics in the Asian context - of where, and how, the ‘global’ meets the ‘regional’ and the ‘national’, and rich narratives of the multiple encounters between states and the array of non-state actors involved in ‘producing’, mobilising and relocating nurses across the globe. With pressures set to increase on global nursing workforces worldwide, this book provides a fascinating, timely and remarkable analysis of a major global phenomenon that is here to stay."
-Nicola Yeates, Professor, Social policy, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
