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Domestic Workers (domestic + worker)
Selected AbstractsBargaining with Patriarchy: Taiwanese Women Hiring Migrant Domestic WorkersANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 3 2000Pei-Chia Lan First page of article [source] Colonial Constructions of Masculinity: Transforming Aboriginal Australian Men into ,Houseboys'GENDER & HISTORY, Issue 2 2009Julia Martínez In Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia, Aboriginal men made up more than half of the domestic servant population by 1938. They replaced the Chinese and Malay male servants who had worked for British colonists in the early colonial period. Much of the historical work on male domestic servants in colonial situations plots the construction of the ,houseboy' as emasculated, feminised and submissive. In contrast, colonial constructions of Aboriginal men as ,houseboys' in Darwin emphasise the masculinity of the Aboriginal hunter. Aboriginal men were characterised as requiring constant discipline and training, and this paternalistic discourse led to a corresponding denial of manhood or adulthood for Aboriginal men. While male domestic servants in other colonial settings were allowed some privileges of masculinity in relation to female workers, amongst Aboriginal domestic workers, it was so-called ,half-caste' women who, in acknowledgment of their ,white blood', received nominally higher wages and privileges for domestic work. Aboriginal men were denied what was referred to as a ,breadwinning' wage; an Australian wage awarded to white men with families. Despite this, their role as husbands was encouraged by the administration as a method of controlling sexual relations between white men and Aboriginal women. These sometimes contradictory images can be understood as manifestations of the racialised construction of gender in Australia. [source] Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi ArabiaGLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 1 2006RACHEL SILVEY In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant-sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low-income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam. [source] The Causes and Consequences of Immigrant Labour in the Construction Sector in MalaysiaINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 5 2005Suresh Narayanan ABSTRACT Malaysian construction is highly dependant on immigrant labour; immigrants account for nearly 70 per cent of its workforce. Although they have aided the sector's rapid expansion, it has not been without costs. This paper examines the impact of immigrant labour on construction. The main finding is that immigrants, being largely unskilled, did not contribute to skill formation. Instead, they accumulated skills on-the-job, which were lost when they returned home. There was no evidence that immigrants displaced domestic workers since they were concentrated in jobs rejected by Malaysians. Furthermore, unlike in earlier periods, legal immigrants were no longer a cheap option, given the regulations governing their employment. They were not used to cut costs per se, but were used because domestic workers were not available in sufficient numbers. Despite the large immigrant presence, the general wage level increased, though admittedly not as rapidly as it might have in their absence. The reliance on immigrant workers has increased the need for supervision and quality control, thereby reducing the savings in cost; nonetheless, immigrants have helped keep costs in check. Surprisingly, rising wages and the continued shortage of labour have not led to a widespread adoption of labour-saving methods. This is partly because productivity increases have managed to outpace wage increases, though this advantage is petering out. Also, immigrant presence has kept wages, as a proportion of total costs, manageable. The over reliance of the sector on immigrant labour is not desirable, especially since the majority is drawn from one source - Indonesia. Any disruption of supply from this source can undermine the Malaysian economy. To avoid this, Malaysia must vary its source of immigrant labour and intensify efforts to attract domestic workers by improving conditions in construction. [source] He Came, He Saw, He Stayed.INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 2 2000Guest Worker Programmes, the Issue of Non-Return Critics of guest worker programmes have pointed out that many temporary workers do not return home when their contracts expire and thus end up swelling the ranks of undocumented workers in a host country. This article argues that this outcome is not inevitable. Whether or not guest workers return home or stay behind depends to a large extent on how the guest worker programme is administered. By comparing the US Bracero Program with the Canadian Mexican Agricultural Seasonal Workers' Program, it is shown that three aspects of programme administration account for why so many Braceros stayed in the US illegally, while almost all temporary workers employed in Canada return to Mexico at the end of the season. The three aspects are recruitment policies and procedures, enforcement of employment and housing-related minimum standards, and the size of the programme. It is suggested that the administration of the programme, in turn, reflects various interests that shape the State's position on foreign labour. Whereas in the US the Bracero Program was tailored to meet the needs of agribusinesses, the Canadian state responds to a wider variety of interests, including its own concern with the definition of ideal citizenship, as well as the need to protect domestic workers and the Mexican Government's interest in assisting those who are most needy. Additionally, unlike the US, where braceros were employed mainly in agribusinesses, in Canada Mexicans are brought to work on family farms. While desertion was a frequent phenomenon in the US, the paternalistic relationships that Canada-bound workers develop with their employers make desertion unlikely. [source] Reconsidering the migration,development link: capability and livelihood in Filipina experiences of domestic work in ParisPOPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 2 2009Leah Briones Abstract Drawing from the experiences of Filipina domestic workers in Paris, this paper reconsiders the migration,development relationship in order to inform current research and policy on the protection of migrant domestic workers. The paper employs Martha Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach to explicate the migrant workers' experience as dynamically produced through the interconnection of their migration with development processes. The paper shows how it is through the evaluation and promotion of migrant domestic workers' capabilities that current approaches can secure rights along with sustainable livelihood choices at the immediate, individual migrant worker level, as well as in the long term, at state and global levels. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Determinants of Child Labour: The Role of Primary Product SpecializationLABOUR, Issue 2 2005Leonardo Becchetti The paper tests predictions of a traditional intra-household bargaining model which, under reasonable assumptions, shows that lack of bargaining power in the value chain significantly reduces the capacity for obtaining benefits from increased product demand arising from trade liberalization and therefore is positively associated with child labour. Cross-sectional and panel negative binomial estimates in a sample of emerging countries support this hypothesis. They show that proxies of domestic workers' bargaining power in the international division of labour (such as the share of primary product exports) are significantly related to child labour, net of the effect of traditional controls such as parental income, quality of education, international aid, and trade liberalization. The positive impact of the share of primary product exports on child labour outlines a potential paradox. The paradox suggests that trade liberalization does not always have straightforward positive effects on social indicators and that its short-run effects on income distribution and distribution of skills and market power across countries need to be carefully evaluated. [source] |