Class and Status Mobility of Filipina Local and Transnational Domestic Workers

Abstract

Using secondary and primary field data, this paper presents a three-pronged argument regarding class mobility and social status of Filipino domestic workers. First, the upward mobility of these workers is contingent upon their situated position within the “international division of reproductive labor” (Parrenas, 2000: 574). Class mobility depends on whether they are situated in medium-sized cities in the periphery, in metropolitan areas of the periphery, in semi-peripheral countries, or in core countries. Second, the extent to which Filipino women are accepted in overseas domestic work depends on their social status in their homeland; the closer to the middle-class level an applicant is, the more likely it is that she will be hired abroad. Third, the Filipina domestic worker has a contradictory class position; in her homeland, First World employment augments her social standing. The closer her workplace is to the core, the greater her upward mobility within her homeland. In the First World, however, her social status declines because “dirty’ work is defined as “lower class,” and she is racialized because of her race/ethnicity, class, and nationality.

Keywords:

• Class mobility
• social status
• contradictory class positions
• domestic work
• migrant workers