Domestic Workers in Transient Overseas Employment Who Benefits, Who Profits by Noeh Heym and Because of the undervaluation of Vivienne Wee women's work, their increasing par- ticipation in the work force does not automatically guarantee their well- Damcctartick, ksautcuresncaminmt being. The result is the notorious ks factcurs qui ont conttibui h la "double burden" of work and home croisJance dc la c h s c moyenne A m ks that is now the lot of many working women.-1n the ab- sence of the social investmentsneces- The higherfemale la6ourforcepartt'c;Pation rate sary to enable men of the high-&owth countries can be maintained and women to combine working only through the labour subsidy of m i p n t domestic life and family life workersfiom the hw-growth countries. without undue stress, various dis- tortions in eco- rkgiom du Sud-Est asiatique et par comiquent, dcs dnnandcJ acmspour ksservicesd'employLes a2 maison. Dam ceprocessus dc dtyeloppement, la ques- tion dc division des respomabilids L& reprodwtrwtron sociak quotidicnne rntre I'ltat et &familk est h e n u e plus une question de division du travail entre &tames dc c h moyenne etfemmes dc c h s e ouvri2re. Lrs autcures proposent quelques plam dkction pour valoriser k travail des employits dc maison et pour s&rsurer que ks employfes elks- m h e trouvtnt satisf.mmon &m leur travad The "trade in domestic workersn is part of the export of labour fiom poorer to richer countries. Wages, employment, and the general secu- rity ofpeople in someAsian countries have been afFected by various factors, such as a decline in economicgrowth, falling commodity prices, currency devaluation, foreign debt, political and cultural instability, ethnic, and religious crises. At the same time, there are countries in the region that have experienced relatively high growth rates and general political sta- bility, resulting in the growth of mid- dle classes seeking domestic help. Many middle-class women from the latter countries are entering and stay- ing in the labour force. nomic and social life have occurred to enable women to cope with their "double burden." One distortion is the transfer of the domestic burden to other women, who may be unpaid family members or low paid domesticworkers. In the Asian region, this transfer of the do- mestic burden has become a transnational process, such that the higher female labour force participa- tion rate of the high-growth coun- tries can be maintained only through the laboursubsidy ofmigrant domes- tic workers from the low-growth countries. But the transfer of female labour from the relatively less devel- oped countries of the region for the workofsocial reproduction is aviable alternativeonly for middle and upper class families. In the process of devel- opment, the shifting division of re- sponsibilitybetween the state and the family for the social reproduction of everydaylife has, thereby, been trans- formed into a transnational division oflabour between middle classwoman and working class woman. This article looks at four migration streams involving domestic workers from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Phil- ippines, and Bangladesh. The receiv- ingcountriesinclude Malaysia,Hong Kong, Singapore, the Gulfcountries, and Pakistan. Profiles of funale domestic workem Studies of the migration stream of Filipina domestic workers show that most oftheseworkers areyoung adults between 25 and 34 years of age. Fig- ures show that most domestic work- ers migrating overseas are relatively well-educated women from urban areas, who are overqualified for do- mesticservice. Such migration is thus a downwardly mobile brain drain, which would have serious repercus- sions for the future of the sending countries, in terms of the de-skilling of the labour force. Another conse- quence of the overseas migration of domesticworkers is the disruption of their family life. About 48 per cent of women migrating were married. Of the Indonesian domesticworkerssur- veyed as respondents 60 to 70 per cent have elementary education. The reuuitment procese There is a recruitment network that spans the sending and receiving countries, permeating down to the villages and linking them to towns and cities abroad. This is a transnational business, with profits siphoned off at every level of recruit- ment. Kinship ideology and group- ings can become powerful social forces that pressure daughters and young women to migrate in order to support the family and household. Within the kinship domain, multi- ple power relationships are at play. In East Java, married women fiom both rural and urban areas seek over- seas employment to fulfill basic fam- ily needs, as well as to make a pil- grimage to Mecca. They are moti- vated by concerns for family survival and not by their need to enjoy an independent life or to fulfill their own aspirations. Having been drawn into the re- cruitment network, the individual 98 CANADIAN WOMAN SlWDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME