Female Domestic Workers Research Articles

A Comparative Analysis of the Femicide of Migrant Domestic Workers in Bahrain and Lebanon

Gender-based violence (GBV) is becoming a major topic of criminological concern. This article examines the factors contributing to the abuse of female Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs) by their employers in two Middle Eastern countries, Lebanon and Bahrain. It pinpoints the law as the structure that maintains the slavery-like conditions that facilitate the systematic violence towards MDWs in Bahrain and Lebanon. It also looks at how processes of criminalisation cement MDWs in their precarious positions, subject to un-investigated femicide. Therefore, this article proposes to view femicide as a state of existence resulting from a wider societal structure as opposed to a single act condensed in time and space. The article adopts an intersectional approach to GBV, which draws attention to the states’ role in facilitating the exploitation of MDWs. It also calls for the inclusion of MDWs in the Lebanese and Bahraini labour laws. By acknowledging the multi-dimensional abuse which ultimately results in the death of MDWs, the article concludes that the governments of the receiving and sending countries must do more to protect their most marginalised subjects. Moreover, criminologists should include MDWs as a criminalised group in more of their academic endeavours.

Voices of domestic workers in Calcutta

This research examines the experiences of female domestic workers in Calcutta, India, with a focus on the relationships between the workers and their female employers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty female domestic workers in Calcutta in 2015–2016. The women were asked to reflect on their relationships with their female employers, and responses were analyzed using grounded theory. Three themes emerged from the analysis, indicating three different kinds of relationships the workers had with their employers. Some of the women talked about a professional relationship, which is formal and lacks warmth, characterized by status differentiation. Others talked about a distant and abusive relationship, where exploitation is direct and explicit. The largest group talked about a caring and supportive relationship, where there is love, consideration, and understanding. All three groups of women, however, felt that their relationship with their female employer involved some level of exploitation, whether it was overt or concealed. These findings give voice to a vulnerable group of workers in contemporary India, exposing social relationships between women of different classes that are characterized by both compassion and exploitation. We argue that these women’s stories provide further evidence that legal protections must be put in place for domestic workers in India, in accordance with international recommendations.

Broken Biographies: framing Migration among Female Domestic Workers in India

ABSTRACT Domestic work has emerged as a widespread occupation amongst rural women migrating to urban cities in India for lucrative employment. Their accommodation is fraught with a challenging adjustment to the city as a space which is unfamiliar and isolating. I focus on the nature of the city and how migrants re-define it. Through this article I try to delineate the interrupted lives, or rather, the broken biography of the female worker as migrations from rural to urban areas create socio-cultural disruptions to her story. I postulate this disorienting exposure to an unfamiliar urban setting as an important requisite in situating her labour in middle/upper-class homes. Paid domestic work has commonly been understood as extensions of unpaid housework. She is familiarized into doing tasks by her urban employers. This familiarization however, at an ideological level, rhetorically questions female domesticity as she is re-trained into gendered roles that society has historically believed to be hers. Ethnographic research conducted at Jeevanlalbasti/working-class neighbourhood, located in an urban residential area of south Delhi, attests to this. Oral history as a methodological tool has allowed this study to account for upheavals experienced in social lives and interpret local histories of migrant domestic workers.

“I Should Get Married as Soon as Possible, but the Relationships I Start Do Not Work”: Marital Prospects of Ethiopian Female Return Migrants from the Arabian Gulf

This study seeks to understand how the intersection of migration, gender, and age shapes the marital prospects of Ethiopian female domestic workers returning from the Arabian Gulf and the Middle East. The study found that gendered attitudes in Ethiopian society rooted in patriarchy interact with age and the migration experiences of returnees to create stigma and marginalization, excluding the returnees from the highly desired social institution of marriage. It was also found that returnees tended to dissociate themselves from other returnees or kept their experiences secret to cope with stigma and marginalization and increase their marital prospects. The study shows how the stigma and marginalization experienced by Ethiopian female returnees from the Arabian Gulf and Middle East countries affects their social reintegration in the home country and can trigger remigration intention.

Geospatial analysis of female fertility in Oman: do immigrant female domestic workers make a difference?

ABSTRACT Despite the progress achieved in transformational development in socioeconomic domains, in Oman, like other Gulf Cooperation Council states, fertility rates are higher compared with those in other Middle East nations. Reproductive behaviour often varies geographically; consequently, analysing and modelling this phenomenon should be conducted at subnational and finer levels to capture spatial heterogeneity patterns. In this research, data from the last Omani census are used and local indicators of spatial associations (LISA) as well as spatial econometric models have been employed to examine the effects of sociocultural factors, particularly foreign female domestic workers, on local fertility variations. Remarkable spatial differences were observed in the effects of structural covariates on fertility rates. Several spatial clusters indicate a correlation between higher fertility rates and higher values of other explanatory sociocultural variables. Furthermore, the subnational variations of fertility rates are significantly explained by geographical and sociocultural factors, such a surban-rural settlement, education, female employment in governmental sectors, unemployed women, and the proportion of foreign female domestic workers. The findings also reveal that the rural and Bedouin communities, particularly in the internal governorates, not only displayed higher fertility rates, but also had more unemployed women.

Domestic workers’ commutes in Bogotá: Transportation, gender and social exclusion

Transportation, gender and social exclusion have increasingly come together in scholarly pursuits and policy agendas in Latin America and the Caribbean. The recognition of the gender dimension of sustainable mobility has opened a space to consider the role of women, especially of those facing poverty and exclusion, in this global agenda. However, research on the link between precarious occupations, social exclusion, and gender, and the role that mobility plays both in enhancing and limiting development opportunities for highly vulnerable workers in the Global South is still limited. Based on Bogotá’s 2015 Mobility Survey, data from an application that matches domestic workers with employers (HogarU) and interviews conducted with domestic workers, this paper investigates the case of Bogotá, Colombia, to describe domestic workers’ daily commutes. More specifically, it focuses on the long duration of their trips, their patterns, their inevitable connection to public transportation, and the financial implications for their restricted family budget. Considering a legal provision that establishes a time-window for switching between public transportation vehicles, the paper also examines its effects on domestic workers’ commutes. By doing so, the paper aims to address the situation not only of the massive group of female domestic workers traversing the city every day, but also of other similarly situated social groups that could find in transportation a path towards greater social inclusion.

Validation of Obesity Status Based on Self-Reported Data among Filipina and Indonesian Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Macao (SAR), China.

Background: Migrant domestic workers are at high risk of overweight and obesity. It is crucial to assess the prevalence of obesity among this migrant population, for surveillance and intervention. Self-reported height and weight are commonly used to derive body mass index (BMI) and assess the prevalence of obesity. The accuracy of BMI from self-reported height and weight in migrant populations remains unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of BMI from self-reported measures and identify the optimal adjustment to be made to overweight and obesity cut-off points when using self-reported body mass index among migrant workers. Methods: Self-reported and objectively measured height and weight were obtained from 1388 female Filipina domestic workers and 369 female Indonesian domestic workers recruited using respondent-driven sampling between November 2016 and August 2017. Self-reported BMI (based on self-reported height and weight) and measured BMI (based on objectively measured height and weight) were calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters for all participants (kg/m2). Results: BMI derived from self-reported height and weight was underestimated for both Filipina (z = −27.5, p < 0.001) and Indonesian (z = −9.9, p < 0.001) participants. Applying the gold standard of Asian BMI cut-off points to self-reported BMI, the sensitivity in identifying overweight or obesity was 64.4% for Filipina participants and 78.6% for Indonesian participants and the specificity was 97.9% for Filipina participants and 93.8% for Indonesian participants for overweight or obesity. When self-reported measures were used, the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves and the corresponding area under the curve (AUC) indicated optimal cut-off points of 22.0 kg/m2 and 22.3 kg/m2 for Filipina and female Indonesian participants for overweight or obesity. Conclusions: Although BMI derived from self-reported height and weight allows for quick and low-cost obesity screening, a considerable underestimation of overweight or obesity prevalence was observed in Filipina and female Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Macao (Special Administrative Region, SAR), China. With the best compromise between sensitivity and specificity, the new cut-off points can be used in future studies to identify overweight or obesity in these two populations using self-reported height and weight.

New Arab Maids: Female Domestic Work, “New Arab Women,” and National Memory in British Mandate Palestine

AbstractThe “new Arab woman” of the early 20th century has received much recent scholarly attention. According to the middle- and upper-class ideal, this woman was expected to strengthen the nation by efficiently managing her household, educating her children, and contributing to social causes. Yet, we cannot fully understand the “new Arab woman” without studying the domestic workers who allowed this class to exist. Domestic workers carried out much of the physical labor that let their mistresses pursue new standards of domesticity, social engagement, and participation in nationalist organizations. This article examines relationships between Arab housewives and female domestic workers in British Mandate Palestine (1920–1948) through an analysis of domestic reform articles and memoirs. Arab domestic reformers argued that elite housewives, in order to become truly modern women, had to treat maids with greater respect and adjust to the major socioeconomic changes that peasants were experiencing, yet still maintain a clear hierarchy in the home. Palestinian memoirists, meanwhile, often imagine their pre-1948 homes as a site of Palestinian national solidarity. Their memories of intimate relationships that developed between elite families and peasant maids have crucially shaped nationalist narratives that celebrate the Palestinian peasantry.

Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong: Smartphone culture and activism

This article focuses on contemporary smartphone culture and activism performed by female Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. There are around 330.000 migrant workers in Hong Kong, and wherein 150.000 originated from Indonesia. Most of the Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong work in the domestic sectors: housemaid, babysitter, and career. They are obliged to live with their employer and start working from five mornings until late at night for six days a week. The smartphone is their primary medium in keeping a connection with friends and families back home and reduces social isolation. Interestingly, Indonesian migrant workers also use smartphones for activism to support migrant workers’ rights issues. Despite the isolation issues and the social limitations experienced by the Indonesian migrant workers’, this article aims to explore the following questions: how is smartphone culture developed in Indonesian migrant workers’ communication activities in Hong Kong? How is the smartphone, in particular, used as the medium for activism? Using the netnography method, this research explores the smartphone culture and activism performed by Indonesian migrant workers’ in their online routine. Smartphone usage has become an interesting phenomenon where this device has changed the cultural habits and further forms a new cultural pattern. Social media platforms and chat applications on smartphones have facilitated Indonesian migrant workers’ more comprehensive access to information. It is found that social media access is essential for Indonesian migrant workers to ease loneliness and further used as their medium of existence in the virtual world. Furthermore, they also create virtual identities through social media, share experiences and views through online platforms, and organize protests or other forms of activism. Sulistyaningsih’s case is a clear example of how communication access was crucial for Indonesian migrant workers at a time of danger. The diverse forms of communication technology have allowed them to create compelling messages. This activity provides evidence that Indonesian migrant workers still can be creative despite their long working hours.

Impact of Lockdown for COVID-19 on Female Domestic Workers: A Case Study from Cuttack City

The female domestic workers are categorised under informal and unskilled job without any constitutional guarantees. With passage of time due to declination of joint families and entrance of more number of women into the employment sector has given rise to need for a supporting hand to work inside the home. On the other hand female domestic workers are providing financial security to the socio-economically poor families. But, due to lockdown the female domestic workers, who are vital to the smooth functioning of homes, are facing trepidation. The onset of travel restriction affected their livelihood and income security due to lack of social protection. They are in threat of dismissal from job when not reporting to their work in fear of infection of COVID-19. Thus, this piece of work tries to find out the impact of lockdown imposed due to COVID-19 pandemic covering 100 female domestic workers as respondents from Cuttack city of Odisha.

Female Domestic Workers: Income Determinants and Empowerment Correlates—A Case Study

This paper deploys the information of 300 female domestic workers who work to make up the difference between subsistence requirements and the total earnings of the family. The determinants of monthly income of the workers are age, type of work, total family members, per-capita monthly household income, year of schooling and number of houses serviced. Low wages, low level of education, less control over assets and income, verbal and physical abuse and the absence of social security are reflected in their weak bargaining power which results in a low level of empowerment. Women’s earnings do not always ensure empowerment, especially when the wages are low. Meaningful legal safeguards, welfare measures and other provisions for empowerment must be inducted in modern society to reduce injustices, deprivations and indignities towards female domestic workers.

Radio Soundings: South Africa and the Black Modern

Reviewed by: Radio Soundings: South Africa and the Black Modern by Liz Gunner Loren Kruger Radio Soundings: South Africa and the Black Modern BY LIZ GUNNER Cambridge UP, 2019. xiv + 224 pp. ISBN 9781108470643 cloth. The "sound of Africa" has inspired several significant studies of music and other forms of performance in South Africa, from David Coplan's In Township Tonight! (1985/2008) through Veit Erlmann's Night Song (1996) to Louise Meintjies's Sound of Africa! (2003), Christopher Ballantine's Marabi Nights (1993/2012), and Tsitsi Jaji's Africa in Stereo (2014). While these discuss recording and sometimes also musical performance disseminated by radio and occasionally film, Liz Gunner is the first to demonstrate the central role of radio in giving voice to African impresarios, writers, and listeners who created and sustained the diverse sounds of black modernity even as the apartheid government insisted on maintaining the fiction of distinct tribal identities to rationalize segregation. While acknowledging earlier studies' attention to the modernity of night music (ingoma ebusuku—the Zulu term since the 1920s for performance by professionals or aspiring professionals in urban venues for cash paid predominantly by working men in their evening leisure hours), Gunner encourages readers to tune in to the everyday modernity of radio, which has been and continues to be consumed by women as well as men during days as well as evenings of work and leisure. The cover for Radio Soundings, a photograph by Paul Weinberg, aptly captures this crucial extension. It shows a Zulu woman doing the laundry accompanied by a battery-operated portable radio in the foreground of an apparently rural space—as the caption tells us "Roosboom, near Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal" (back cover). The photograph foregrounds the domestic listening habits of women as well as the modern provenance of the portable receiver, whose "international" label on the front highlights its transnational [End Page 209] as well as local appeal. This picture directs the viewer to the topographical as well as oral (voiced), and aural (listening), components of Gunner's study, grounded in the culture of KwaZulu while also tracing the migration of radio, producers, and listeners to and from South African urban centers as well as points of exile in Europe and beyond. It is precisely this combination of sounding and placing that makes this study unique. Gunner begins part one well before the first radio broadcasts in the 1920s, with the sound of war music and language associated with the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, whose forms such as amahubo empi (war anthems) and izibongo (praises) found their way into Zulu experiences of modernity from service in World War I to migrant labor thereafter (32) and informed the work of pioneer educators such as turn-of-the-century John Dube and his mid-20th-century student King Edward Masinga. Masinga in particular deployed izibongo to persuade reluctant broadcasters in Durban to hire him to create a regular Zulu program, starting with news of World War II in 1941 (36), continuing with cultural programs including musical versions of Zulu folk tales and Zulu translations of Shakespeare, and concluding with untranslated "praises" for his apartheid boss in 1970 that Zulus would have understood as sharp critique. Chapter two continues the account of "communication though the back door" (49), which black employees of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) had to use, with the career of Alexius Buthelezi who managed, despite apartheid promotion of an imagined rural Zuluness, to use the intimacy of radio and especially the thoroughly syncretic forms of music drama and transnational sources such as Buchan's Pilgrim's Progress as well as major Zulu writers such as C. L. S. Nyembezi, to forge a modern sense of identity among diverse Zulu audiences from recent migrants to the aspirant black middle class, male industrial workers, and female domestic workers (55). Part three updates this exploration of "drama, language and everyday life" (113) in radio serials (imidlalo yomoya—plays of the air—or amastori-stories) and their creation of a forum for listeners' responses not only to the twists and turns of serial drama, but also, indirectly but forcefully, to the political upheaval of the 1970s and especially state violence...

Filipino and Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong: Their Life Courses in Migration

This article presents a portrayal of Filipino and Indonesian female domestic workers’ life courses in migration, using the life history calendar data from the 2017 survey of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. Applying sequence analysis, we first analyzed migration trajectory features such as individual migration trajectories, duration spent in each state, and longitudinal diversity of state distributions. We found that Indonesian domestic workers, compared with their Filipino counterparts, are more diverse in their migration histories, indicating involvements in serial migration. We also conducted a cluster analysis of the domestic workers’ migratory trajectories. The analysis yielded three meaningful clusters/types of migrant workers—those moved late in life, those who participated in serial migration, and those migrated directly from their home country to Hong Kong. Finally, we investigated the effect of a complex migration history on job satisfaction and the characteristics of membership in the three ideal-typical migration types among the domestic workers older than 39 years.

Working Conditions and Work-Related Health Issues of Female Domestic Workers in Four Districts of Karachi.

To determine the working conditions and work-related health issues of female domestic workers (FDWs) in four districts of Karachi. Population-based cross-sectional study was conducted in four squatter settlements of Karachi with sample size of 406 FDWs in 2018. Pretested questionnaire was administered to collect data through snowball technique. Multivariate logistic regression examined the association between different factors and experiencing violence, work-related injuries, and chemical exposures. Only (14.5%) of domestic workers earned Rs 15 000 (75 GBP month-1) and above. >1% had financial support for the health or education of children. Verbal violence included shouting (40.9%), constant critique of work (17.2%), and job threats (13.5%). Common workplace injuries were cuts (30.8%), burns (27.6%), and bruises (23.6%). Doing laundry showed significant positive association with experiencing cuts [odds ratio (OR) = 2.09; 1.15-3.71], looking after children to bruises (OR = 2.29; 1.07-4.88), and cooking to burns (OR = 4.66; 2.68-8.08). Creating economic environment which is equal for all low wage workers, setting up domestic labor standards and holding employers accountable to them is essential.

Meaning Production in Transition: Interpretations of Domestic Work Through a New Law

This work aims to analyse meaning production in interpretations on the transition from the perspectives of domestic workers and employers, brought about by a change in the Brazilian legislation regarding domestic work. Such legal adjustments regulate the role of the domestic worker and add new elements to the employer and worker relationship. Transitions in moments of cultural tension promote recursive dynamogenic processes, which conventionalize social practices, and orient self-regulation. Two female employers and two female domestic workers who did not know each other took part in individual semistructured interviews. The dialogic thematic analysis was applied. Results indicated that the workers’ and employers’ meaning production had polyphonic communalities marked by their orientation to a respectful, trustful, just, and dignified work relationship. The polyphonic dynamics are produced in intertwining of personal and collective trajectories produced by historical and situated chronotopes in which new practices are appropriated with two different motives: the obedience regarding the law for the employers and professionalization and gaining of dignity for the workers. The workers’ ambivalences appear to arise in the clash between public-private arenas, as demonstrated by the current and previous positions oriented by human and professional rights. Expectations of the workers’ politeness and actuations adequacy in work oriented the employers’ positions.

The influence of housing on sexual and reproductive health status and service utilization among Filipina migrant domestic workers in Macao (SAR), China: A population survey

ObjectiveSexual and reproductive health (SRH) and service utilization among female migrant domestic workers are under-studied. No studies to date have investigated the unique health vulnerabilities that affect female foreign domestic workers. The objective of this study was to investigate how stay-in and stay-out living conditions in domestic work may differentially affect SRH status, service utilization, and sexual risk behavior among female migrant domestic workers in Macao (SAR), China. MethodsData were analyzed from a cross-sectional survey conducted between November 2016 and August 2017 among 1368 female Filipina migrant domestic workers living and working in Macao. Participants were recruited through respondent-driven sampling. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to assess relationships between living context and outcomes of interest. ResultsDomestic workers’ living context (i.e. stay-in versus stay-out) was significantly related to sexual risk behavior patterns and SRH status and service utilization. Compared to stay-out workers, stay-in workers had reduced odds of sexual risk behaviors but were also more likely to report that their sexual partners were likely to have concurrent sexual partners. In addition, stay-in workers had significantly decreased odds of having visited an OBGYN in Macao in the past year. ConclusionsThis research is the first to evaluate the impact of stay-in and stay-out conditions within a foreign domestic worker population. This study further provides novel evidence of contextual factors (e.g. financial, employment, living conditions) that contribute to inequalities in SRH status and service utilization among Filipina migrant domestic workers. Results indicate that living context is significantly correlated with sexual risk behaviors, SRH status, and service utilization among domestic workers in Macao, highlighting the need to more effectively tailor specific interventions to meet female domestic workers’ needs.

“Powerless power”: The status of female domestic workers in Russia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th century

The proposed article investigates the specifics of social status of urban female domestic servants in post-reform Russia. On the basis of a wide range of sources, including statistical materials, printed press, household manuals and ego-documents, the author distinguishes between two groups in this category of population that were fundamentally different in their status in the master’s family. In the post-reform period in Russia, the work of maidservants was not standardized, there were no guarantees from hirers regarding both working conditions and cases of dismissal and disability. Widespread sexual harassment and abuse seriously worsened the position of maidservants. A significant influx of peasant girls, who considered themselves fully prepared for the work of domestic servants, into the city, created a gigantic supply At the same time, the overwhelming majority of the job seekers did not have any idea about the activities that they were to carry out. Making endless blunders, the clumsy peasant girl acquired professional skills and learned to live in the master’s family, suffering insults and harassment and working hard only to avoid being kicked out. As a result, those girls who had been able to endure several years of torment, acquired not only professional skills, but were trained to live in the city, to use their position to earn money, to protect themselves from encroachment, or to use their attractiveness as a weapon. With the growth of education of female peasant youth, their increasing familiarity with judicial institutions, and the intensification of the activities of various organizations involved in helping those women with education and employment, female domestic servants felt more secure and ready to defend their rights. As a result, despite the seemingly gigantic supply, it was, in fact, extremely difficult to find a suitable maidservant for the household. The choice available to the owners was limited to two options - a docile slouch, or a maid knowing her worth and requiring consideration of her interests.

Financial education for female foreign domestic workers in Singapore

We evaluate a randomized field experiment to study the effect of financial workshops for domestic workers in Singapore. Groups of women met monthly with a trained mentor. Take-up rates were low and our results are inconclusive as to whether invitations to these workshops improved financial knowledge and behavior. Unexpectedly, treatment assignment had a significant, negative effect on self-reported savings. Further exploration suggests that assignment to treatment could affect participants’ awareness of accumulated savings. We find a reduction in the number of savings accounts reported and an increase in the probability respondents report having disagreements with family members over finances.

Fe y Trabajo: servicio doméstico, asociaciones católicas y género en los años cincuenta

Fe y trabajo, editada entre 1944 y 1962, era la publicación de la Asociación Católica del Personal Doméstico Femenino. En sus páginas, se imbrican discursos que construían un modelo de trabajadora dócil y sumisa, con otros que promovían su sindicalización. En este artículo, situamos este caso en relación a otras asociaciones católicas de empleadas, marcando sus peculiaridades. Analizamos las transformaciones del boletín a lo largo del período en que fue editado, considerando los cambios en el contexto político y señalamos el lugar que tenían las representaciones generizadas en los discursos de reivindicación de los derechos de las trabajadoras.

“Troubling” stories: thoughts on the making of meaning of shame/ful memory narratives in (post)apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT Reflecting on narratives collected as part of the Apartheid Archive Project, a memory project of “ordinary” experiences of living under apartheid, this paper engages with stories that articulate white South Africans’ shame/ful relationships with Black female domestic workers. It is increasingly of concern that the dominant response to apartheid abuses are to consider them “in the past” in order to avoid discomforting reminders. Shame and its silencing effect, as feminist and other critical literature shows, is bound up with relations of power, legitimating privilege and subjugation. Yet, shame may also be deployed as narrative strategy to deal with subjective discomfort and guilt by those seeking to disentangle themselves from association with social privilege and its abuses. How do we respond to narratives that may have both effects? Drawing on contemporary critical pedagogies, such as the work of Zembylas that specifically engage with the affective turn, and guided by Probyn’s argument that shame is a powerful resource of social critique, this paper suggests productive possibilities of such narratives in contemporary South Africa. While acknowledging contestations, an argument is made for the value of stories of shame/shaming towards troubling the erasure of apartheid and its continuities in the present while also disrupting the denial of historical and current complicity with power and privilege.