The Economic and Psychological Burden to Hospitals and Care Facilities of Accepting EPA Candidates in Japan

Abstract

The Japanese government has encouraged the opening of the domestic market to foreign workers under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) as a “special case” in order “to promote the trade relationship between Japan and the countries that sign the agreement” since 2008. According to the literature, the introduction of nurses and care workers is not at all economical. Many empirical studies indicate that the costs of accepting EPA candidates is crucial for accepting institutions. In this study, the authors developed a multiple regression model for the economic and psychological burden of EPA and evaluated the goodness of fit of the model by comparing hospitals and care facilities. The multiple regression analysis indicated a good fit model for hospitals, but not for care facilities. The authors speculate that there are some differences in management between hospitals and care facilities that should be considered in interpreting this phenomenon.