Andre Laliberte
University of Ottawa, School of political studies
Presented at the ILO 4th RDW Conference
Geneva, Swizerland
July 9, 2015
Research design
 Most similar conditions
 Large urbanized area;
 Importance of wealthy middle classes
 Significant number of migrant domestic workers
 Increasing demand for care-givers service since 1990s
 Key differences
 Political and legal regimes/rule of law
 Levels of governments: the focus of this research
 Funding for the research:
 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
partnership grant on ‘Gender, Migration, and the Work of
Care in the Asia-Pacific’ (File No: 895-2012-1021), under the
direction of Ito Peng, PI.
Hong Kong special
administration
region
Shanghai special
municipality
Taiwan
1,104 km2
6,340 km2
36,193 km2
7.2 million
24.5 million
23.7 million
Levels of government
 Higher tier of government: greater state capacities
 Taiwan (Republic of China): top tier
 Central level of government, 4 lower levels below
 Sovereignty except for universal recognition at the UN
 Hong Kong special administrative region: hybrid
 One country two systems: large degree of autonomy
 Full responsibility except for defense and foreign affairs
 Shanghai special municipality: second-tier
 Mayor’s power equivalent to that of provincial governor
 Implementation of decisions made at the center
Migrant Domestic workers
in local labor force
 Taiwan (ROC Ministry of Labor, April 2015)
 Foreign (223,072) and local (?) caregivers
 Foreign (+ 577,811)/local workers (11.599m)
 Hong Kong (HKSAR Labor Department, April 2015)
 Foreign (+ 320,000) and local (?) domestic helpers
 Foreign (FDH+SLS?)/ Local (3.907m) workers
 Shanghai
 Domestic helpers, nannies, housekeepers (+ 490,000 (est. 2014,
Insight Magazine))
 Local Migrants from other provinces (39% of Shanghai’s total
population (est. 2010, Shanghai Bureau of Statistics)/local labor
force (Data from Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security unavailable)
Origins of FDW in ROC and HKSAR,
MDW in Shanghai
 Taiwan (MOL, 2015)
 Indonesia
179,270
 Philipines
25,595
 Others
20,172
 Hong Kong (LD, 2015)
 Philipines
166,743
 Indonesia
140,720
(98 % of total)
 Shanghai: (Shanghai Bureau of Statistics, 2011)
 Anhui 29 %; Jiangsu 17 %; Henan 9 %; Sichuan 7%
 79 % from rural area
Main forms of abuse faced by
domestic workers
 In all cases:
 Vulnerability to employers’ abuse because domestic workers are
excluded from labor legislation: their work is not considered labor
 Brokers, placement agencies ask for fees ‘training’, placement, etc.
 Lack of oversight
 In Taiwan and Hong Kong:
 Live-in requirements leads to lack of privacy, 24 hrs workdays
 Right to choose place of work curtailed by employers
 Taiwan:
 Restrictions on type of employment allowed
 Hong Kong:
 ‘2 weeks rule’: expulsion even if employer was faulty
 Shanghai
 Limited possibility for media to report on cases of abuse
Variety of sources of abuse
 Taiwan and Hong Kong
 Abusive employers
 Placement agencies in sending and receiving countries
 Complicit governments guilty by omission
 Politicians have other priorities and/or populist politicians
 Popular biases against ‘alien’ migrant workers’ morality
 Outright patriarchal attitudes that look down on work
traditionally performed by women
 Shanghai
 Same as above
 Additional difficulty of the obstacles imposed on civil society
mobilization
All is not lost!
NGOs supporting migrant domestic workers
 Taiwan
 Awakening Foundation, TIWA
 Protestant and Catholic church-based NGO, Garden of Hope
 Hong Kong
 Lawyers offering pro bono services,
 HKCTU and other unions: FADWU, UNIFIL-HK, etc
 Church-related NGO: Open Door, Helpers for Domestic
Helpers, Pathfinders, Mission for Migrant Workers
 Shanghai
 ForNGOs, Little Bird Hotline, Youdao
 GONGOs: YMCA, All-China Federation of Women
Limited success
in attempts at redress in Taiwan
 Civil society initiatives
 Initiatives from churches and related organizations on a
quotidian basis
 Migrant empowerment network in Taiwan (MENT 台灣移工
聯盟): Petition declaring support for legislative protection of
domestic caretakers and house workers
 Weak government response
 Domestic Worker Protection Act promoted in 2003, passed in
Spring of 2015, but in a watered-down version
 ROC MOL last week refusesdto grant pay raise to foreign
domestic workers because their employers offer them housing
 Taiwan’s lack of diplomatic recognition complicates
possibility of reaching agreement with sending countries
Tepid government responses to
attempts at redress in Hong Kong
 Vigorous civil society initiatives
 Importance of litigation
 Militancy of Hong Kong trade unions movements
 Constant activism and emergency relief provided by churches
and affiliated associations
 2015 Roundtables on foreign domestic workers involved NGO,
local and foreign politicians and shamed authorities to act
 Main obstacles caused by the status of the HKSAR
 Limitations imposed by the limitation to the sovereignty of
Hong Kong serve as a convenient excuse for inaction on the
welfare of foreign domestic helper/workers
 Populist politicians who are otherwise unpopular play on
nativist sentiments
Heroic and unheard of
attempts at redress in Shanghai
 A few brave civil society initiatives
 ForNGO: brave initiative but limited resources
 Others have to ceased activities: current context of China is
not conducive to mobilization by grass-root NGO
 Main challenges:
 An oligopolistic group of powerful employment agencies with
official support through a licensing system that coexist with
an unfettered and unregulated market of small agencies
 Blurred boundaries between some NGO and government:
Church-related organizations such as YMCA are part of the
state-sponsored official church and CCP United Front
 Lack of media attention limits popular awareness
Does level of government make a
difference?
 A conundrum of comparative politics: dissimilar conditions
that have led to a similar outcome
 Similarities in outcomes that trump differences in level of
government and differences in political regimes
 Similarities of interests among brokers and agencies appear
more determining than political differences
 Similarities in choices made by different governments for an
approach to social policy that favors a minimal welfare state
likely to be a crucial independent variable
 Research strategy will seek to test the latter hypothesis
 Process tracing of the public discourse that seek to naturalize
policies premised on the necessity to deliver care with live-incaregivers, not in publicly-funded institutions