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Flores Morales J. Aging and undocumented: The sociology of aging meets immigration status. SOCIOLOGY COMPASS 2021; 15:e12859. [PMID: 33868455 PMCID: PMC8047879 DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12859] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2020] [Revised: 01/10/2021] [Accepted: 01/14/2021] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Being undocumented is strongly correlated with low wages, employment in high risk occupations, and poor healthcare access. We know surprisingly little about the social lives of older undocumented adults despite the vast literature about youth and young undocumented migrants. Literature about the immigrant health paradox casts doubts on the argument that unequal social conditions translate to poorer self-reported health and mortality, but few of these studies consider immigration status as the dynamic variable that it is. Reviewing research about older migrants and minorities, I point to the emergence of undocumented older persons as a demographic group that merits attention from researchers and policymakers. This nexus offers important lessons for understanding stratification and inequality. This review offers new research directions that take into account multilevel consequences of growing old undocumented. Rather than arguing that older-aged undocumented migrants are aging into exclusion, I argue that we need careful empirical research to examine how the continuity of exclusion via policies can magnify inequalities on the basis of immigration status and racialization in older age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Josefina Flores Morales
- California Center for Population ResearchUniversity of California Los Angeles‐SociologyLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
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Vargas MC, Garabiles MR, Hall BJ. Narrative identities of overseas Filipino domestic worker community in Macao (SAR) China. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY 2020; 48:977-993. [PMID: 31951296 DOI: 10.1002/jcop.22318] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2019] [Revised: 11/21/2019] [Accepted: 12/03/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Domestic workers comprise roughly one-fourth of the total number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). They leave the Philippines primarily to provide financial assistance to their families they leave behind. Most of the existing studies investigated the problems they experience at work and with their families. Some studies focused on how they cope with these problems. However, little is known about the narrative identities of this group of labor migrants. This study addresses this gap by identifying the narrative identities of the community of Filipino domestic workers in Macao Special Administrative Region, China. This study utilized qualitative interviews to plot the identities into a three-part timeline: Premigration, during migration, and imagined future. Results show that, before migration, the community of domestic workers identifies as hands-on mothers and inadequate mothers. During migration, work- and family-related identities are present: Modern-day slave, inadequate, fighter, self-sacrificing, employer's family, and hands-on mother. In an imagined future, the community of domestic workers identifies as successful retired OFWs, reconciled life partners, hands-on mothers, and inadequate mothers. Findings highlight the multiple, interacting identities in community narratives and their corresponding effects on experiences. Implications on policies and programs for this labor migrant group are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marenel C Vargas
- Department of Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines
| | - Melissa R Garabiles
- Department of Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines
| | - Brian J Hall
- Department of Psychology, Global and Community Mental Health Research Group, University of Macau, Macao (SAR), China
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Cheng SJA. Contextual Politics of Difference in Transnational Care: The Rhetoric of Filipino Domestics’ Employers in Taiwan. FEMINIST REVIEW 2019. [DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
The construction of foreign domestics as ‘Others’ has been a critical process to the globalization of domestic service. While the globalization of domestic service has been associated with a transnational female labour force, the transnational labour system has always been reconstituted as a new labour regime consistent with local particularity. In this article, I examine how Taiwanese employers discursively construct the otherness of their Filipino domestics. I argue that Taiwanese employers construct and naturalize the otherness of foreign domestics utilizing national identities, racial characteristics, and nationally based class difference. These differences, integral to the racialization of foreign domestics, are central not only to the persistence of their servitude at home but also to their social and political marginalization in the host society as a whole. The localization of a transnational labour force necessitates the examination of the contextual politics of difference. Rather than speaking of the universalized experience of foreign domestics, the contextual politics of difference provides a comparative framework for understanding not only the relational but also the contextual nature of identity construction. It demonstrates how difference is localized in the transnational system of care and how the localization of difference serves to reproduce social and global inequality.
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Ghaddar A, Khandaqji S, Ghattas J. Justifying abuse of women migrant domestic workers in Lebanon: the opinion of recruitment agencies. GACETA SANITARIA 2018; 34:493-499. [PMID: 30594331 DOI: 10.1016/j.gaceta.2018.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2018] [Revised: 10/24/2018] [Accepted: 11/05/2018] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Gender-based violence against women migrant domestic workers (WMDW) is a serious public health concern in the Middle East region. The current study is the first to explore abuse of WMDW as perceived by recruitment agency managers. METHOD A qualitative study was conducted using 42 personal semi-structural interviews with agency managers in Lebanon. The interview guidelines were designed based on the standards set by the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 189. The information was transcribed in Arabic, and data was analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS The interviewees believe that WMDW are subject to abusive practices that represent various violations of the ILO Convention No. 189, including harassment and violence, compulsory labour, misinformation about conditions of employment, denial of periods of rest and restriction of movement and travel documents. In many situations, the interviewees justified some of these practices as being necessary to protect their business and to protect the workers. CONCLUSION The results of this study have several policy implications for the protection of WMDW against abuse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ali Ghaddar
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, Lebanese International University, Beirut, Lebanon; Observatory of Public Policies and Health, Beirut, Lebanon.
| | - Sanaa Khandaqji
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, Lebanese International University, Beirut, Lebanon; Observatory of Public Policies and Health, Beirut, Lebanon
| | - Jinane Ghattas
- Observatory of Public Policies and Health, Beirut, Lebanon; Faculté de Santé Publique, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
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Pande A. “The Paper that you Have in Your Hand is My Freedom”: Migrant Domestic Work and the Sponsorship (Kafala) System in Lebanon. INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/imre.12025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 55] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
A recent report on migrant domestic work in Lebanon has cited psychological disorder among Lebanese “Madams” as the leading cause of violence against their migrant maids (Jureidini, 2011, www.kafa.org.lb/StudiesPublicationPDF/PRpdf38.pdf ). This report typifies much of the existing scholarship on the experiences of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in the Middle East, where the focus is on employer–employee relationships, especially the abusive Arab “Madam.” In this paper, I argue that the portrayal of violations of MDW rights as abuse of one set of women by another is inherently problematic on several fronts. It privatizes the structural problem of workers’ and immigrant rights violations, delegates it to the household, and absolves the state of its responsibility. Moreover, the focus on abusive employers takes attention away from the root of the problem – the inherently exploitative system of migration and recruitment in the region, the sponsorship system. The sponsorship system not only creates conditions for much of these violations, but also systematically produces a new population of readily exploitable worker – the category of “illegal workers.” Oral histories and interviews with individual workers are employed to analyze the process by which illegal workers are “produced” in Lebanon. Finally, focus group discussions highlight critical policy recommendations made by the workers themselves, which address the systemic bases of their exploitation in Lebanon.
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Lai FY. Migrant and lesbian activism in Hong Kong: a critical review of grassroots politics. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2018. [DOI: 10.1080/1683478x.2018.1461053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/16/2022]
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Negotiating Family “Value”: Caregiving and Conflict Among Chinese-Born Senior Migrants and Their Families in the U.S. AGEING INTERNATIONAL 2016. [DOI: 10.1007/s12126-016-9269-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
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Liu W. The embodied crises of neoliberal globalization: The lives and narratives of Filipina migrant domestic workers. WOMENS STUDIES INTERNATIONAL FORUM 2015. [DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2015.03.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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Francisco V, Rodriguez RM. Countertopographies of Migrant Women: Transnational Families, Space, and Labor as Solidarity. Work 2014. [DOI: 10.1111/wusa.12119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
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Zahreddine N, Hady RT, Chammai R, Kazour F, Hachem D, Richa S. Psychiatric morbidity, phenomenology and management in hospitalized female foreign domestic workers in Lebanon. Community Ment Health J 2014; 50:619-28. [PMID: 24370752 DOI: 10.1007/s10597-013-9682-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2013] [Accepted: 12/03/2013] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
40 million female domestic workers worldwide experience the inhumane conditions associated with this unregulated occupation, a situation that induces psychiatric morbidities in many. The case in Lebanon is not any better where it is estimated that one foreign domestic worker (FDW) commits suicide weekly. 33 female FDW and 14 female Lebanese (control group, CG) were enrolled. Brief Psychotic Rating Scale (BPRS) and Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scales were administered on admission and discharge and socio-demographic, living conditions, mental health care data and phenomenological observations were collected. Sexual, physical, and verbal abuses were detected in FDW (12.5, 37.5, and 50.0 %. respectively). 66.7 % of them were diagnosed with brief psychotic episode. The mean duration of hospital stay (13.1 days) was significantly lower in the FDW group. The mean cumulative antipsychotic dose of the FDW was 337.1 mg of chlorpromazine equivalent and the mean BPRS total pre-score of FDW was 66.4 with a much improved state on the CGI global improvement scale, all of which were nonsignificantly different from the CG. Striking phenomenological findings among FDW were acute anorexia (39.4 %), nudity (30.3 %), catatonic features (21.2 %), and delusion of pregnancy (12.1 %). Inpatient FDW are more diagnosed with psychotic than affective disorders and receive approximately similar treatment as controls in spite of the trend to rapidly discharge and deport the worker to limit the costs. Both groups presented with similar severity, although the FDW had peculiar phenomenological observations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nada Zahreddine
- Department of Psychiatry, Saint-Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon,
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Taylor A, Foster J. Migrant Workers and the Problem of Social Cohesion in Canada. JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND INTEGRATION 2014. [DOI: 10.1007/s12134-014-0323-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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12
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Encinas-Franco J. The language of labor export in political discourse: “modern-day heroism” and constructions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2013. [DOI: 10.1080/01154451.2013.789162] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jean Encinas-Franco
- a Department of Political Science , College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman , Philippines
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Hoang LA, Yeoh BS, Wattie AM. Transnational labour migration and the politics of care in the Southeast Asian family. GEOFORUM; JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL, HUMAN, AND REGIONAL GEOSCIENCES 2012; 43:733-740. [PMID: 22984293 PMCID: PMC3437558 DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.12.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2011] [Revised: 12/21/2011] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
Recent increases in female labour migration in and from Asia have triggered a surge of interest in how the absence of the mother and wife for extended periods of time affects the left-behind family, particularly children, in labour-sending countries. While migration studies in the region have shown that the extended family, especially female relatives, is often called on for support in childcare during the mother's absence it is not yet clear how childcare arrangements are made. Drawing on in-depth interviews with non-parent carers of left-behind children in Indonesia and Vietnam, the paper aims to unveil complexities and nuances around care in the context of transnational labour migration. In so doing it draws attention to the enduring influence of social norms on the organisation of family life when women are increasingly drawn into the global labour market. By contrasting a predominantly patrilineal East Asian family structure in Vietnam with what is often understood as a bilateral South-East Asian family structure in Indonesia, the paper seeks to provide interesting comparative insights into the adaptive strategies that the transnational family pursues in order to cope with the reproductive vacuum left behind by the migrant mother.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lan Anh Hoang
- School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
| | - Brenda S.A. Yeoh
- Department of Geography and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, Kent Ridge, Singapore 117570, Singapore
| | - Anna Marie Wattie
- Center for Population and Policy Studies, Gadjah Mada University, Bulaksumur G-7, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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LeBaron G, Roberts A. Toward a Feminist Political Economy of Capitalism and Carcerality. SIGNS 2010. [DOI: 10.1086/652915] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
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Mkandawire-Valhmu L. "Suffering in thought": an analysis of the mental health needs of female domestic workers living with violence in Malawi. Issues Ment Health Nurs 2010; 31:112-8. [PMID: 20070225 DOI: 10.3109/01612840903254842] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
The impact of violence on the mental health of women has been acknowledged but with limited exploration in resource-poor countries. Using critical ethnography and feminist methods, we analyzed the impact of violence on the mental health of a sample of Malawian women employed in domestic service. The analysis showed mental health as being situated in the context of poverty, inhumane treatment, social isolation, and the erosion of hope. We offer suggestions on how psychiatric nurses and other health care providers can promote the mental health of women employed in domestic service while acknowledging the limited mental health services in Malawi.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucy Mkandawire-Valhmu
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, College of Nursing, P. O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201, USA.
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Mkandawire-Valhmu L, Rodriguez R, Ammar N, Nemoto K. Surviving life as a woman: a critical ethnography of violence in the lives of female domestic workers in Malawi. Health Care Women Int 2009; 30:783-801. [PMID: 19657817 DOI: 10.1080/07399330903066137] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
A common form of employment for low-income third world women is domestic work. The power dynamics in this type of employer-employee relationship may place women at risk for abuse. Our aim in conducting this qualitative inquiry was to describe the experiences of violence in the lives of young female domestic workers in Malawi, a small country in South East Africa. Forty-eight women participated in focus group and individual interviews. "Surviving" was the main theme identified, with women employing creative ways of surviving the challenges they met at various points in their lives. This study provides information that health care professionals could use in assisting women through the process of surviving.
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Mohanty C. “Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles. SIGNS 2003. [DOI: 10.1086/342914] [Citation(s) in RCA: 558] [Impact Index Per Article: 26.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
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