Book review: Multinational maids: Stepwise migration in a global labor market by Anju Mary Paul

• Main Author: CHANG, Andy Scott
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Demography, Population, and Ecology; Race and Ethnicity
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3524; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4782/viewcontent/0891243218801267_pvoa.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

From Singapore and Tel Aviv to Rome and Vancouver, Filipina domestic workers have captured the hearts of international employers, thanks to their English proficiency, educational attainment, and cosmopolitan outlook. Though confined to indentured servitude in nearly every country, Filipinas trot the world scouring for higher salaries, job security, and even pathways to citizenship. Their Indonesian counterparts likewise undertake multinational journeys, beginning in neighboring Malaysia and concluding in high-wage economies like Taiwan. But while Filipinas view employment in newly industrial economies as a springboard for the West, Indonesians display limited interest in settlement outside origin communities, content as they are with circular migration within Asia. How Filipina and Indonesian domestics attain material welfare through incremental migration projects forms the subject of Anju Paul’s Multinational Maids: Stepwise Migration in a Global Labor Market. Juxtaposing the constraints and opportunities created by the global demand for reproductive labor, and tracing women’s spatial mobility across variegated national landscapes, this book is a refreshing rejoinder to scholarship that overemphasizes the structural forces that disempower migrant agency.