Working Conditions for Migrant Women Reminiscent of Slavery

Helen Brandt has a particular interest in career counseling and the sociology of work. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy
Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, editors
Metropoltian–Owl Books, 2003
288 pp., paperback, $15.00
ISBN 0-8050-7509-7

This book is about migrant women from poor nations who come to prosperous countries hoping to find employment and, thus, improve their lives and the lives of their families back home.

The book consists of essays by 15 contributors. The reader meets a variety of immigrants, among them Maria, a Philippine nanny who works for a professional couple in California, Siri, a sex worker in Thailand, Minh and Thanh, a Vietnamese couple who are marriage migrants to Quincy, Wash., and Indrani from Sri Lanka who has worked in a Qatar household for 12 years.

In prior centuries both spouses in America put in long hours of arduous labor on the farm, at home or in a factory. Today in large urban centers, both spouses are likely to have jobs that pay well and that do not require physical labor. Neither wants to take on the burden of housework. The size of homes has increased but their owners do not want to clean them. Persons with jobs that demand long hours hire workers to care for their children. Consequently, the market for cheap household labor from other countries is vast.

We are aware of the many products sold in the United States that are made elsewhere: shoes, jeans, pots, TVs and cars, to name a few. Our trade deficit of goods for 2002 was $484.5 billion. However, there is another outward flow of cash that has been unnoticed. Workers from abroad send billions home each year. For example, “In 1998, the remittances migrants sent home topped $70 billion globally.” (p. 270)

In countries such as the Philippines, the remittances of women workers abroad have recently been the third largest source of foreign currency. For highly indebted poor countries, such remittances are an important source of hard currency to pay interest on the country’s national debt.

Globalization evokes images of transnational corporations and communications networks. But this book documents its effects on women around the world who labor long hours for little or low wages in locations far from their homes and families. The interviews with these women are both fascinating and disturbing. They probe the economic reasons and the psychological consequences of the world market for women’s labor. We may have eliminated legal slavery in the United States and in other first world countries, but the working conditions offered by some of the most prosperous citizens are only one step away from slavery.

Because of the quantity and variety of information in “Global Woman” it would have been helpful to have an index. Maps are provided that show the migration routes of women workers worldwide. Overall, this is a very readable and fascinating book.

After reading it, you will begin to notice the “invisible” migrant women among us, often speaking little or no English, providing services that allow the affluent to live the good life. §