ABSTRACT:
Background. Former Filipina entertainers who migrated to Japan in the 1980s and 1990s under the entertainer visa system are now entering later life in a markedly different social position—many as wives and primary caregivers of aging Japanese husbands. This study examines how gendered migration trajectories and aging shape caregiving and healthcare access, focusing on how migrant women navigate clinical, welfare, and bureaucratic pathways while sustaining care in the home. Methods. The paper draws on ethnographic life-history and semi-structured interviews with former Filipina entertainers in Japan, complemented by archival materials and migration policy analysis on the entertainer visa regime and its afterlives. Interviews focus on later-life health needs, marriage and household arrangements, caregiving practices, and encounters with medical and administrative institutions. Data are analyzed thematically with attention to embodiment, affect, and moral labor. Results. Findings show that caregiving extends beyond physical and emotional support to include coordinating treatment decisions, managing paperwork and legal responsibilities, and mediating expectations of devotion while managing their own aging bodies and changing family roles. These encounters suggest that access is produced not only through formal eligibility but through everyday negotiation of institutional rules and moral expectations. These transitions reveal oscillations between shifting subjectivities as women become simultaneously central to household survival and socially invisible in later life. Conclusion. The study highlights how later-life health equity depends on whether health and welfare systems recognize and support migrant spouses who provide intensive care. Findings point to the need for migrant-inclusive support, culturally and linguistically accessible pathways to services, and social protection measures that reduce the hidden burdens of care in aging societies.