Migration and transnational health protection in East Asia

East Asian migration regimes are characterised by temporariness, selective incorporation and restrictive pathways to permanent settlement. Yet this emphasis on immigration control obscures a less recognised feature of the region: the extensive incorporation of legal migrants into public social protection. Comparing Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, this article examines how non-citizen migrants gain access to healthcare and welfare provisions and how these arrangements shape their transnational social protection. Drawing on policy analysis and legislative review, we identify three ideal-typical logics of incorporation: status-based, residency-based and hybrid-familist. Japan largely follows a legal-residency model, while Korea and Taiwan combine residence-based inclusion with employment- and family-linked eligibility. We argue that, despite restrictive pathways to permanent settlement, these welfare regimes extend substantial protection to legal migrants without permanent residency, locating social membership in residence, contribution and recognised family ties rather than citizenship alone. This inclusive architecture nevertheless remains stratified: migrants with irregular or precarious status face significant gaps and often rely on civil society, sending-state programs, markets and personal networks. By showing restrictive migration governance can coexist with comparatively expansive welfare inclusion, this article challenges conventional accounts of East Asian migrant incorporation and underscores the role of receiving-state welfare institutions in transnational social protection.