Unit 2: Gender issues in the world of work

Emerging gender issues in the Asia Pacific region

Women in migration
Women in migration: key issues
Good practice example: Organizing migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong
Suggested further readings

Women in migration: key issues

Introduction

As one of the most striking economic and social phenomena of recent times, the feminisation of international migration raises crucial policy issues and concerns. Stated very simply, the policy concerns derive from the fact that the problems faced by migrant women are compounded by their being both women and migrants. From a gender perspective, women should have equal opportunities and treatment as men in immigration and emigration policies and in access to international labour markets. On the other hand, their status as women, as migrants or non-nationals, and as workers in gender-segregated labour markets makes international women migrant workers particularly vulnerable to various forms of discrimination exploitation and abuse. They therefore require special protection.

The policy issues are complicated , not only because they cover both emigration and immigration policies and the employment structures and labour laws of both sending and receiving countries. They also involve socio-cultural attitudes and perceptions concerning the role and status of women in the family, society and workplace, yet such gender biases may not be amenable to direct policy intervention.

Women's Migration in Asia

Asia is of particular interest for several reasons:

• Feminisation has been most pronounced in Asian international labour migration.
• Asian women are moving in their own right as autonomous economic migrants, rather than as dependants of male migrants.
• The situation of Asian women migrants reflects the dilemmas of women trying to seize economic opportunities overseas, but having to contend with cross-border entry and exit regulations, social constraints, gender discrimination, and various forms of exploitation in countries of origin and destination.
• It has been particularly the plight of Asian women migrants, especially those in domestic service and the entertainment industry, that has heightened public concern and prompted calls for more effective efforts to promote the rights and protection of migrant workers.
• Asian countries, both sending and receiving, have been experimenting with a number of gender selective and gender sensitive migration policies and programmes.
• Recent actions on the part of Asian women migrants themselves and NGOs in both sending and receiving countries provide useful and interesting examples of unofficial efforts to complement and supplement government policies and programs.

Characteristics of Asian Women's International Labour Migration

The specificity and significance of Asian female labour migration is evidenced by several distinctive features¾ distinctive either in comparison to male labour migration or to female migration in other parts of the world. These characteristics help explain why Asian women predominate in recent labour migration flows. They also emphasise their vulnerability and need for protection. (Of course, despite these generalisations, there are several significant differences across countries and communities of origin.)

• The supply of Asian women labour migrants has been very flexible, relative both to men from their own countries and to women migrants from other parts of the world. This flexibility can be attributed to a number of factors, particularly the relative lack of social constraints, the relatively high female labour force participation rates in their own countries, the active role of government and private intermediaries in promoting their migration, and the support of social networks.
• Socio-cultural attitudes in Southeast Asian countries and Sri Lanka have permitted even young, unmarried women to travel overseas to work. These attitudes have been more liberal than those in other South Asian and Arab countries.
• Social networks have determined the self-sustaining and cumulative nature of Asian women migration flows. Asians are known for maintaining strong social relationships and networks of obligations, and it was through these that information was transmitted, contacts established, employment opportunities for new migrants created and grasped, social supports provided. Women, especially young women, are more likely to move as a result of chain migration. They also rely more than men on informal social networks.
• Governments of sending countries have played an active role in promoting migration flows. Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Korea, Bangladesh and Thailand, all have bureaux or offices to encourage labour exports.
• The growth of an "immigration industry" in Asia has greatly facilitated female migration, both legal and illegal. Were it not for recruitment agents, overseas employment promoters, manpower suppliers and a host of other legal and illegal intermediaries, Asian labour migration since the mid-1970s would not have reached such a massive scale.
  The operation of these intermediaries has facilitated migration, but they are also the very cause of the vulnerability of women migrants. They often charge exorbitant fees; and migrant women’s frequent relationship of dependence on them can lead to a series of exploitative practices.
  There has also been a proliferation of illegal intermediaries. Women are more likely to sue these channels because they are less educated and have limited access to information. Women who migrate through these channels are the most vulnerable.
• Asian female migration is strongly characterised by concentration in a very limited number of women-dominated occupations: domestic helpers, entertainers (often a euphemism for prostitutes), helpers in restaurants and hotels, assembly-line workers in labour-intensive manufacturing. These jobs are at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy. They are also seen as "appropriate" for women because they are associated with characteristics of docility. obedience and "caringness" traditionally ascribed to Asian women. Women migrants, especially in domestic service and entertainment, are prone to abuse, as highlighted by many studies.
• Women migrants are particularly vulnerable, because they go into individualised work situations, where there is greater isolation and lower likelihood of establishing networks of information and social support, compared to male migrants, who commonly work in groups on construction sites or plantations. The nature of employment, regulated on a relationship heavily in favour of the employer, also contributes to the domestic helper’s vulnerability to exploitation. But the most important source of vulnerability of Asian women migrants is that they are concentrated in occupations not normally covered in the host country’s labour codes or social security provisions. In addition, enforcement is a challenge in these sectors.
• International migration of Asian women involves despoiling and erosion of skills. For a better income but lower social status abroad, they understate their qualifications in order to land jobs as domestic servants. In the host countries, they are not allowed to shift to higher skilled jobs even if these are available and they are qualified.
• The distinction between "skilled" and "unskilled" women migrants is not always clear. Even where jobs are categorised as skilled, the problem of abuse and exploitation are not likely to disappear, because these are due to the work environment associated with the particular occupations.
• Asian women migrants opt to work abroad under trying conditions for the good of the family, aware that they may personally gain little from the experience. Yet safe and efficient channels to remit their earnings and encourage their productive utilisation are often lacking. Case studies have shown that reintegration after return may be equally difficult for migrant women. Pressures are therefore created for them to remigrate, resulting in a flow of circulatory migrants seeking employment from place to place.

Promotion of Women's Migration