Migrant Domestic Workers In Singapore Research Articles

Migrant domestic workers and transnational foodcare chains in pandemic times

AbstractIn view of heightened food security issues in COVID‐19 times, we employ a transnational lens to give bifocal attention to migrant women’s experiences during the pandemic, as they sought to secure access to food for themselves and for left‐behind children and family members in Indonesia and the Philippines. In conjunction with the classic idea of global care chains and the notion of foodwork, we propose the idea of transnational foodcare chains. This distinctly agentic, migrant, and maternal food labour came to the fore under exceptional times of pandemic‐induced social distancing, economic precarity, and limited travel. First, we argue that these foodcare chains are multi‐relational, involving interdependence and reciprocity among a web of caregivers to secure food gaps. Second, we suggest that foodcare chains also extend to friendship networks forged among fellow migrant domestic workers in Singapore. Third, under pandemic conditions, we argue that foodcare chains enter the domain of well‐being and healthcare as food becomes evoked as medicine and cures. Drawing on findings from 40 qualitative interviews with Indonesian and Filipino migrant domestic workers in Singapore, we focus on developing, within studies of food (in)security, the idea of foodcare chains by foregrounding the maternal, relational, and often invisible labour of achieving food security for migrant women and their left‐behind families.

How Deteriorating Conditions in Myanmar Affect Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore: A Transnational Analysis of Migrant Labour Regulation

The COVID-19 pandemic and 2021 military coup in Myanmar have greatly exacerbated the existing economic distress of ordinary people across the country. Yet, what has been the impact of the pandemic and the coup on Myanmar migrant workers abroad? To address this question, we investigate the situation of Myanmar migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Singapore. We find that pandemic-related economic contraction in Myanmar and heightened insecurity following the country's 2021 military coup have increased outmigration and intensified pressures on Myanmar domestic workers in Singapore to increase remittances and set aside aspirations of shortly returning home. These origin-country conditions, mediated through a transnational system of labour brokerage, have increased Myanmar MDWs’ vulnerability to exploitation and abuse relative to MDWs of other nationalities. This article thus contributes to analysis of the transnational constitution of migrant labour regimes.

Mental health, stressors and resources in migrant domestic workers in Singapore: A thematic analysis of in-depth interviews

Past research with migrant domestic workers (MDWs) has elucidated their vulnerability, stressors they face, as well as coping and resilience. However, they tend to be conducted through surveys, prioritising breadth over depth. To understand the individual experience of being an MDW, more in-depth exploration of these factors is required. An in-depth qualitative approach was used to explore the challenges faced by MDWs, how these challenges impact mental health, and the coping strategies they use to manage them. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 female Filipino and Indonesian MDWs recruited from community settings. Reflexive thematic analysis generated three broad themes of challenges (migration-, work- and human rights-related), two themes for mental health (distress and well-being) and four themes for coping strategies (engaging with problems, managing emotions, avoiding problems and emotions and future-focused). Results are explored through the lenses of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, resilience-based stress-appraisal-coping model and Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, focusing on the connections between unmet needs, mental health, and coping. Our findings elucidate potential factors contributing to the well-being of MDWs, which could inform MDWs, their employers, policy makers and other service providers on ways to maximise well-being of MDWs.

The Temporal Borders of Transnational Belonging: Aging Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore

Amidst public debate about the need for migrant domestic workers to assist with eldercare in Asia, we hear little about the futures of the workers themselves. This paper focuses on low-wage migrant domestic workers of different nationalities who have spent decades in Singapore, and how they imagine, prepare for, or avoid discussion of their aging futures. Singapore’s immigration regime enforces mandatory retirement and return migration when domestic workers reach 60 years old. These impending displacements evoke mixed emotions as migrant women re-evaluate questions of care, home, and the relationships they have developed with employers, kin back home, and communities abroad. In this paper, I explore how temporal borders operate alongside spatial borders to shape migrant women’s futures, illuminating uneven intersections between citizenship, gender, and care over the lifecourse. I further trace how the women navigate, ignore, push back, and bridge the anticipated ruptures of temporal borders.

Anerkennung und ontologische (Un-)Sicherheit von migrantischen Care-Arbeiterinnen in Singapur: Zur Bedeutung von Sichtbarkeit und Zugehörigkeit

Abstract. Migrant domestic workers in Singapore are situated in a highly hierarchical environment, requiring them to live and work in the same place. This spatial situation leads to a lack of space and time for the female workers which challenges their psychosocial well-being. We ask how the women, nevertheless, develop psychosocial well-being, based on their recognition and subjective embodied positioning, analytically grasped through the concept of ontological (in)security. Based on qualitative interviews, we show how the workers perceive and produce ontological (in)security through spatial dimensions of visibility and belonging. These dimensions are subjectively embodied in multiple places and networks. On behalf of multiple visibilities and belongings outside the domestic realm, domestic care workers in Singapore are able to actively produce ontological security and strengthen their psychosocial well-being. The results show the relevance of implementing regulations for the women to have more possibilities in choosing their whereabouts.

Ageing bodies, precarious futures: the (im)mobilities of ‘temporary’ migrant domestic workers over time

ABSTRACT In both historical and contemporary studies of contract mobile labour, little attention has been granted to ageing migrant bodies from a lifecourse perspective. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with older migrant domestic workers in Singapore, this article investigates how, in the context of restrictive regimes of mobility shaping temporary labour migration, age crucially factors into the (im)mobility of migrant domestic workers. Growing older and approaching retirement marks a point of perceived bodily immobility as states and employers deem migrants’ ageing bodies as too frail and no longer productive, thus inducing mandatory returns to their countries of origin. The paper traces how the ageing bodies of ‘temporary’ migrants are discursively constructed by neoliberal regimes of mobile labour; the implications on migrants’ present and future mobilities; and how migrants contest such characterisations of their bodies and attempts at controlling their mobilities at different scales. In considering the later-life implications of long years of work abroad in precarious and low-wage conditions, we see how age becomes important to our intersectional analyses of racialised (im)mobile labour across multiple historical and comparative contexts, and to our understandings of how inequalities are (re)produced over time.

Social Protection for Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore: International Conventions, the Law, and Civil Society Action

Although migrant women from neighboring Southeast Asian countries fill crucial care gaps in Singapore households as live-in domestic workers, their social protection remains uneven, uncertain, and indeterminate. Framed as unskilled work shunned by citizens and characterized by isolation in the privatized sphere of the home, domestic work has invariably become low-status, low-visibility, and low-pay work performed by foreign women engaged on private contracts. The access of migrant domestic workers in Singapore to social protection has thus triggered concern among international organizations, governments, and civil society. Using data derived from a survey of Indonesian domestic workers, interviews with key stakeholders, and archival research, this article adopts a transnational social protection research agenda by mapping how institutionalized practices that aim to reduce the vulnerabilities of migrant domestic workers in Singapore have shifted in the past decade. We begin by addressing the circumscribed impact of international conventions and origin government policies. Following our premise that the social support and protection of migrant domestic workers still depend largely on the host society, we focus on two interrelated developments in Singapore. First, we examine the reach of immigration, labor, and criminal law in recent “maid abuse” cases to reveal how criminal law in particular has broadened to account for the specific vulnerability of domestic workers and, relatedly, the culpability of errant employers. Second, we consider how civil society’s campaign for a “mandatory” rest day offers insight into both the success and limitations of developing transnational advocacy for domestic workers in Singapore.

Translating People and Policy: The Role of Maid Agents in Brokering between Employers and Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore’s Migration Industry

There has been a surge of recent interest in the migration industries that facilitate the movement of migrants, particularly that of low-waged laborers engaged in temporary contracts abroad. This article extends this research to include migration brokers working in destination contexts, thus drawing analytical attention to the arrival infrastructures that incorporate migrants into host societies. Based on ethnographic research involving the employment agents who recruit women migrating from Indonesia to work as migrant domestic workers in Singapore, we use the concept of “translation” as a broad theoretical metaphor to understand how brokers actively fashion knowledge between various actors, scales, interfaces, and entities. First, we argue that through the interpretation of language, brokers continually modulate meaning in the encounters between potential employers and employees at the agency shopfront, reproducing particular dynamics of power between employers and workers while coperforming the hirability of the migrant worker. Second, we show how brokers operate within the discretionary space between multiple sets of regulations in order to selectively inscribe the text of policy into migrant workers’ lives. By interrogating the process of translation and clarifying the latitude migration brokers have in shaping the working and living conditions of international labor migrants, the article contributes to the growing conceptual literature on how labor-market intermediaries contour migration markets.

The Giving Up of Weekly Rest-Days by Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore: When Submission Is Both Resistance and Victimhood

AbstractWhy do so few live-in migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Singapore utilize their weekly rest-day entitlement? Using data drawn from 3,886 online profiles of prospective MDWs and 40 interview sessions with MDWs, employers, and manpower agencies, we demonstrate how the industry encourages a “logic of submission” around rest-days. Through processual analysis, we unearth multiple, repeated moments of capitulation at key moments in a MDW’s work-life: (1) their interactions with a recruitment agency while still in their home country; (2) their matching with an overseas employer; (3) the duration of their two-year contract; and (4) the time of contract renewal. Submission to less frequent rest-days can secure their employability and financial mobility but also further individuates the MDW within the employer’s household and may lead to the engraining of a habitus of submissiveness towards their employers that can open the door to workers’ exploitation. We demonstrate how nationality and work experience further inflect this logic of submission to motivate non-Filipina and inexperienced MDWs to request even fewer rest-days than their counterparts. By combining feminist migration scholarship on Asian MDWs, with a sociology of law analysis, we offer up an example of how the same act of submission can simultaneously embody both resistance and victimhood depending upon the temporal and spatial scale used, and varying interpretations of the rest-day benefit as a much-needed respite, a monetizable benefit, or a signaling mechanism.

Perceived stressors and coping mechanisms of female migrant domestic workers in Singapore.

IntroductionWorldwide, there are between 50–67 million migrant domestic workers, the majority of whom are women. In many countries, provisions are not in place to protect female migrant domestic workers. These women may be at risk of occupational and social stressors, including exploitation and abuse, which may negatively impact on their quality of life, including psychological health. Research examining the occupational, social, and psychological needs of FMDWs from a public health perspective is critical to guide the development of policies which ensure wellbeing, prevent abuse, and align with international priorities to improve population health. Though there have been a number of high-profile incidents of exploitation and abuse, there has been limited research on the stressors experienced by these communities, their perceived impact, or coping mechanisms.Materials and methodsThematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative free-text written responses collected as part of a cross-sectional survey on the relationship between social and occupational stressors and the health and quality of life of FMDWs in Singapore. Responses correspond to open-ended questions in the qualitative component of the survey examining three domains: causes of stress, coping strategies, and what people can do to help with stress.ResultsResponses from 182 FMDWs were analysed. Key themes were identified around causes of stress (including ‘work and agency’, ‘the pervasiveness of financial need’, and ‘family and obligation’), coping strategies, and social support. Each theme describes key factors which contribute to the occupational and social stressors experienced and reported by FMDWs.DiscussionThis research highlights the stressors FMDWs in Singapore experience, as well as key coping mechanisms. There is a clear need for policies which facilitate FMDWs’ ability to utilise these coping resources, and which protect against coercive or exploitative employment conditions. Strategies are also needed to monitor and evaluate policies intended to protect FMDWs, and to strengthen the implementation of global frameworks targeted at improving workplace conditions and workers’ rights.

Chutes-and-ladders: the migration industry, conditionality, and the production of precarity among migrant domestic workers in Singapore

ABSTRACTIn order to understand how precarity is created for and experienced by labour migrants, we apply the concept of conditionality – which proposes that a migrant worker’s experience of precarity is contingent on a set of formal and informal conditions, the actions of institutional actors, and migrants’ own resources and strategies – to our study of how employment agents in Singapore and Indonesia recruit and place migrant workers. We develop this concept by arguing that viewing conditionality as not merely additive, but as compounding, sharpens our understanding of precarious work. We use the model of chutesand-ladders to understand how migrant domestic workers in and out of varying degrees of precarity over time. Based on qualitative interviews with migration intermediaries, we suggest that these ‘chutes’ and ‘ladders’ are not static, pre-existing, or inherent; instead, they are dynamically produced by migration brokers, who actively produce, shore up, or mitigate situations of precarity for workers by ‘patching’ chutes, leaving them, or opening up new ones. Conversely, creative agency models redraw the boundaries of conditionality through the creation of ladders. Workers’ access to security is hence not merely conditional, but conditionally compounded, based on the necessity of simultaneously meeting multiple mutually reinforcing and interwoven conditions.

The effects of multilevel governance on the rights of migrant domestic workers in Singapore

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the effects of multilevel governance (MLG) on the rights of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Singapore, focusing in particular on the case of Filipino MDWs. The paper argues that in the highly centralised, authoritarian setting of Singapore, there are very few instances of MLG in the field of migrant domestic work. The Singapore state has resisted the diffusion of norms and initiatives regarding labour migration at the international and regional levels into the national level, and the dispersion of authority to non-state actors such as civil society. However, there are a limited number of cases of MLG in this area, such as unilateral initiatives of the Philippines to protect its overseas workers, and an agreement between the Philippine Embassy and an association of employment agencies in Singapore. The paper contends that while these initiatives can provide an ad hoc and limited improvement of the working conditions of Filipino MDWs, they do not contribute to improved rights of all MDWs in Singapore. Instead, they increase the inequalities between the different national groups of MDWs, and they may have the effect of perpetuating Singapore’s existing policies with regard to MDWs.

Stress, health and quality of life of female migrant domestic workers in Singapore: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThere is a global increase in migrant workers. In Singapore, there are over 230,000 migrant domestic workers (MDWs). Female MDWs may experience high levels of stress and social isolation, which may negatively impact on their health and quality of life. There have also been documented cases of abuse and exploitation. However, there is a lack of empirical research with this population. This study aimed to investigate factors impacting on the health and quality of life of female MDWs in Singapore, including socio-demographic and job related characteristics, stress, social isolation, and working management style.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was carried out with 182 female MDWs in Singapore. The survey examined health and quality of life (WHOQoL-Bréf), social connectedness (the Friendship Scale), and preferred and experienced working management style (the Theory X and Theory Y Questionnaire). Descriptive analyses were carried out in addition to ANOVA, t-tests, and chi-square tests, followed by a multivariate analysis using linear regression.ResultsParticipants were found to have good overall quality of life and satisfaction with health. Age and working experience were found to be significantly (p < 0.05) associated with overall quality of life and three domains (psychological, social, and environmental health). Agreement between experienced and preferred working management style was also found to be associated with higher quality of life scores (with the exception of the social relationships domain). Though women reported relatively good overall quality of life, more than half of participants reported feeling stressed. In addition, nearly 20% of participants reported being isolated or very isolated. Stress was identified to be associated with isolation. In the multivariate analysis, stress was found to contribute to worse quality of life in all domains except social relationships, after adjusting for confounders. Social connectedness was positively associated with all domains of quality of life, and agreement of working management style was positively associated with physical health, psychological health and environmental quality of life.ConclusionsThe findings serve as an evidence-base pointing to the need for policies aimed at decreasing stress and social isolation among female MDWs in order to improve their health and quality of life.

Cultural mediation through vernacularization: framing rights claims through the day‐off campaign for migrant domestic workers in Singapore

AbstractScholarship on civil society in Singapore has tended to emphasize the structural and institutional constraints on civil society space. Conversely, little attention is paid to the broader cultural and discursive realms in which civil society and state actors operate. This article seeks to address this gap by analysing the day‐off campaign for migrant domestic workers in Singapore. We demonstrate that by employing the cultural mediation strategy of vernacularization, civil society was able to frame migrant rights claims in a manner that resonated with the institutional logics and cultural repertoire of Singapore society. Civil society actors gained headway by adapting the discourse on migrant rights to Singapore's socio‐cultural and political context in three ways: by reframing rights claims into a moral appeal; by appealing to the cost‐benefit logics of Singaporean employers of migrant domestic workers; and by situating the provision of migrant labour protections as a relative market position.

Drivers of migration policy reform: The day off policy for migrant domestic workers in Singapore

While there has been much debate on Singapore’s migration policies, a ‘black box’ continues to surround policymaking decisions. This article examines the dynamics of migration policy reforms in Singapore, using the case study of the mandatory weekly day off policy for migrant domestic workers. Designing our analysis around the three ‘Is’ – ideas, interests and institutions – we argue that the inclusion and formalisation of migrant rights in the policy sphere entails the framing of migrant rights in a manner that appeals to Singapore’s institutional logics and cultural repertoire; prioritising the needs and interests of citizens in the policy calculus; and institutional readiness and conviction to the cause.

State and immigration regulations: shared experiences of foreign domestics in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Canada

This paper examines female migrant domestic workers in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Canada, and the way the foreign labor policy of these countries shapes these women’s experiences of migration and employment. It demonstrates that tying live-in domestics to their employers for employment and immigration status makes these women vulnerable to potential abuse and exploitation. The passage of both state and international labor standards demonstrates the success of domestic workers’ decades-long activism at local, national, and transnational levels.

The Use of Mobile Phone and Internet in Transnational Mothering Among Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore

The present study investigates the use of ICTs, particularly mobile phone and internet, among female migrant domestic workers in Singapore for transnational mothering. Through survey and interviews or focus group discussions to 11 Filipino and 11 Indonesian domestic workers, we found that ICTs played a critical role in their child rearing practices. Despite the distance, ICTs enabled them to be closely involved in their children’s routines, get updates about their studies, and even set rules and ensure that they are observed. ICTs were able to partially alleviate their worries about their children, build and maintain intimacies through jokes and frequent communication. While mobile phone was still most preferred for its convenience and voice function, new technologies, such as Facebook and video chat, played a complementary role to, rather than replacing, mobile phone. Facebook allowed them to check on their children’s friends, while video chat combined the benefits of simultaneously talking to and seeing their children. However, ICTs were no substitute to physical presence in which their limited abilities to bridge time and space was magnified when their children fell sick or felt sad. Barriers to the use of ICTs still exist, most commonly in the form of infrastructural barriers in their home countries and employers’ restrictions. Considering the importance of ICT use in connecting with their families and children, governments should push for greater access to ICTs for domestic workers, not only in providing mobile phone handsets, but more importantly, in ensuring the rights to contact their families regularly.

The ‘other’ looks back: racial distancing and racial alignment in migrant domestic workers' stereotypes about white and Chinese employers

While the racial and ethnic stereotyping practised by the employers of migrant domestic workers has received significant scholarly attention, these workers' racial essentializations of their employers have been largely ignored. Drawing upon interviews with Filipino migrant domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong, I present findings concerning the racial stereotypes these workers hold about white and Chinese employers. This stereotyping involves both racial distancing from local Chinese employers and racial alignment with expatriate white employers. This two-track racial project is a defensive tactic that allows Filipino workers to redefine themselves as occupying a higher position in the global racial order (as they see it) on cultural grounds. However, it also makes them complicit in naturalizing legacy stereotypes that valorize whites as morally and culturally superior. In addition, it encourages them to privilege the West as an idealized destination where they fantasize they will enjoy comfortable working conditions from local white employers.

Identity Management among Indonesian and Filipina Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore

AbstractThis study examines how the identities of migrant domestic workers are likely to be endangered and how these individuals struggle to reconstitute them. It is largely based on an interview and observational study with Indonesian and Filipina domestic workers in Singapore. Inspired by the sociological discussion of Goffman and Ishikawa, the study reveals how each migrant domestic worker manages her identity in her specific social context. This study shows that domestic workers contrive tactics to negotiate their situations, given that domestic work is considered a low prestige occupation and workers tend to be divested of the usual “identity kit” to make up their identity front. Specifically, to compensate for their discredited status, domestic workers attempt to reconstitute their damaged identity, obtain a new identity kit, recall previous social and family roles, or anticipate a future identity. They also attempt to acquire new skills and increase their value, so they can identify themselves as more than “just a maid.” They obtain additional roles in an attempt to change how they feel about themselves, to alter the meaning of being a domestic worker, and to redefine their relationships with others either by individual struggles or through collective activities. This study also points out a possible pitfall of identity management among the actors. The mechanism of identity politics might lead to an erosion of value, alienation from other domestic workers, and a strengthening of conventional stereotypes and generalizations regarding ethnicity, nationality, and gender. In this context, how non‐governmental organizations play a role in mitigating the pitfalls of identity management among domestic workers is also examined.

MIGRANT WORKERS AND THE MANY STATES OF PROTEST IN HONG KONG

Migrant domestic workers rarely take part in — let alone organize — public protests in the countries where they work. Public protests are virtually unheard of among migrant domestic workers in Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia, and especially in the Middle East and the Gulf States. Over the past decade and a half, however, migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong — mostly Filipinas and Indonesian women — have become highly active, organizing and participating in political protests. Hong Kong's migrant domestic workers protest in a place where they are guest workers and temporary migrants, denied the opportunity of becoming legal citizens or permanent residents. Increasingly, these workers, their grassroots activist organizations, and the nongovernmental organizations with which they are affiliated frame their concerns in terms of global, transnational, and human rights, not merely local migrant worker rights. This article takes the “Consulate Hopping Protest and Hall of Shame Awards” event — part of the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Hong Kong in 2005 — as an ethnographic example of domestic worker protest and as an entrée through which to ask what it is about Hong Kong and about the position of women migrant workers — whose mobility and voice is both a product and a symptom of globalization — that literally permits public protests and shapes their form and content. The article illustrates how migrant workers’ protests and activism have been shaped by domestic worker subjectivities, by the dynamics of inter-ethnic worker affiliations, and by the sociohistorical context of Hong Kong as a post-colonial “global city” and a “neoliberal space of exception.”