Globalization and the increase in transnational care work: The flip side

Abstract

I argue that to understand the reality of who is (or is not) accessing care globally, we must examine the flip side of the flows of women migrating transnationally to perform caring labor. The flip side includes the levels of care the migrants experience and that attained by their families in their absence. Most migrants endure a care deficit, working in physically and emotionally stressful situations where they encounter many forms of discrimination. Their families may be better off economically, but not emotionally. I examine the role of the state, pointing out that many governments face a double bind—needing women to migrate for economic reasons but not wanting citizens abused abroad or the accompanying adverse publicity. I critique several government responses to this dilemma and conclude by assessing recent international initiatives to address migration problems, suggesting they lack perspective on how globalization influences women's migration.

Notes

1. By the most recent period I refer to the last three and a half to four decades. Other recent periods include the latter nineteenth century to World War I and the period after World War II.

2. Trafficking is defined by the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000) as:

•  The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal or organs. The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation…shall be irrelevant where any of the … [aforementioned] means … have been used.

3. That Hochschild identified (1995, 2003; Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2002, p. 8).

4. The ILO Convention entitled Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No.111) defines discrimination as ‘any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation’ (ILO, 2003a, pp. 1, 57).

5. Foreign domestic workers are not covered by Singapore's Employment Act.

6. Employers sometimes foster fear of the outside world, so maids do not get together and compare ‘notes’.

7. The Development Plan 2001–2004 is available at: http://www.logos-net.net/ilo/195_base/en/init/phi_7.htm. The Development Plan 2004–2010 is available at: http://www.neda.gov.ph/ads/mtpdp/MTPDP2004-2010/PDF/MTPDP2004-2010.html.

8. The foundations of a human rights approach rest in documents such as the UN charter, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), seven UN human rights treaties, and various conventions on refugees, trafficking, and crime (GCIM, 2005; ILO, 2004a).

9. The full name is the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.