Gender, Migration and Domestic Service examines a wide range of migration patterns which have arisen, both on a national and international scale, exposing the tensions and difficulties which arise from this kind of movement. These include legal issues, both in terms of immigration laws and the contractual agreements (or lack or them) available to domestic workers; cultural and language diversities and barriers; the impact of the disruption to families caused by females moving to live-in employment and thus away from the family home; and empowerment issues on two levels - where the employer experiences an increase in status from employing domestic workers, and where the domestic worker experiences a change in status by contributing to the family income or by their workplace providing an arena for social interaction which would otherwise be unavailable. Case studies are taken from Europe, North America, South America, the Caribbean, South Asia, South-East Asia and Africa and are based on fieldwork using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The various crosscutting aspects such as class, status, race and ethnicity, gender relations, violence, state controls on migrants and motives of migrants will be drawn out, and regional and national differences exposed.
Author(s): Janet Momsen
Edition: 1
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 328
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of tables......Page 9
List of figures......Page 10
List of contributors......Page 11
Preface......Page 14
Maids on the Move......Page 16
North America......Page 36
Is this Canada?: domestic workers' experiences in Vancouver, BC......Page 38
Jamaican domestics, Filipina housekeepers and English nannies: representations of Toronto's foreign domestic workers......Page 58
Making maids: United States immigration policy and immigrant domestic workers......Page 77
South America......Page 96
Race and domestic service: migration and identity in Ecuador......Page 98
Transcending gendered boundaries: migration for domestic labour in Chile......Page 113
Europe......Page 130
Overseas domestic workers in the European Union: invisible women......Page 132
The role of ethnicity in shaping the domestic employment sector in Britain......Page 149
Cinderella need not apply: a study of paid domestic work in Paris......Page 163
Domestic work abroad: a necessity and an opportunity for rural women from the Gorika borderland region of Slovenia......Page 179
Africa......Page 194
'Home is where the children are': a qualitative study of migratory domestic workers in Mmotla village, South Africa......Page 198
Working in the city: the case of migrant women in Swaziland's domestic service sector......Page 210
Asia......Page 228
Interlinking trajectories: migration and domestic work in India......Page 230
Maids in space: gendered domestic labour from Sri Lanka to the Middle East......Page 244
'Learning the ways of the priyayi': domestic servants and the mediation of modernity in Jakarta, Indonesia......Page 257
Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong and their role in childcare provision......Page 278
Singapore women and foreign domestic workers: negotiating domestic work and motherhood......Page 292
Conclusion: future trends and trajectories......Page 316
Index......Page 320
