Organizing Elder Care in Family: Family Care Network and Foreign Care Worker

With the ever-increasing elderly population, elder care is becoming a pressing issue in Taiwan. Since 1992, ,the government implemented a policy that allowed households with state-approved care need to hire foreign care workers; since then, the total number of foreign care workers in Taiwan has grown rapidly. I examine as the care needs of elderly parents increase, how do adult children form the family care network first place? When the family decide to hire a foreign care worker to care for the elderly parents, how are the foreign care worker integrated into the existing family care network? And how the family care network changes, after the joined of the foreign care worker? The findings are as follows: The adult children establish the family care network once their parents needed daily care. Although both sons and daughters may actively participate in the family care network, a patriarchal hierarchy (gender, generational) remains. At the same time, the adult children still value taking care of their parents highly. While most of the direct carework falls into the hands of the foreign care worker after the care worker successfully integrated into the family care network, adult children continue to play critical roles in care networks. They would train the foreign care worker and help them integrate into the care networks. These processes underline the need for appropriate cultural knowledge and skills. Adult children continue to participate in care arrangements in terms of giving the foreign care worker care instructions, making care arrangements and strengthening their emotional bonds with their parents. The participation help adult children ensure the quality of care and cope the moral anxiety resulting from the outsourcing carework. The casework that the adult children carry on after hiring the foreign care worker shows that the cultural meaning of filial piety not only include providing good material life for the parents, the emotional bonds and parent-child interaction are also critical.