Labour of Sorrow
Maria Reshetnikova.
Rhacel Parrenas (2001) in her book Servants of Globalization examines the experiences
of the family members of transnational households. The author argues that in
order to provide financial support for their families, Filipino women migrate
to the developing countries such as the U.S and Italy, they often put
themselves and their children under serious emotional stress. Immigrant women
repress feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and regret caused by prolonged
separation and this leads to negative consequences of their own and their
children’s wellbeing. Children often become vulnerable to abuse and feel overwhelmed
by anxiety, abandonment, and lack of emotional intimacy with their mothers.
Similarly,
Sedef Arat-Koc (2009) in her article “The Politics of Family and Immigration in
the Subordination of Domestic Workers in Canada,” looks at the experiences of the immigrant women working as
domestics in Canada and argues that features of the immigration policy such as
temporary working permits and live-in conditions make these women vulnerable to
abuse by their employers. Therefore, while these women are coming to developing
countries in the hope of better opportunities, they are faced with serious
emotional and physical costs that affect them and their families. Governmental
intervention such as public childcare services and better structural support of
the immigrant workers such as political rights may solve these problems in
Canada. However, unless gender inequality is not eliminated in both sending and
receiving countries, there is not a great deal that can be done to help these
women and their families.
According to Parrenas, immigrant women who are working away from their
families often experience feelings of helplessness, loss, and loneliness. The
mothers realize the financial dependence of their families on them, and feel
helpless because they have to continue to work abroad instead of being with
their families (Parrenas, 2001, p.120). Parrenas comments that feelings of loss
are associated with prolonged separation. Immigrant women often do not see
their children grow up; moreover, prolonged separation leads to unfamiliarity
between a parent and child and becomes harder to repair with time (2001, p.121).
Loneliness also often overwhelms immigrant women. Lack of intimacy is often reinforced
by the frequent contact with the children of their employees (Parrenas, 2001,
p.121). Therefore, prolonged family separation leads to serious emotional
strain among immigrant women which is underscored with
time and type of job.
Moreover, Parrenas argues that in order to deal with
such emotional strain these women repress their emotions (2001, p.125). Placing
emphasis on the importance of their children education, mothers “equating love”
with material support send money, designer clothes and toys (Parrenas, 2001, p.124)
In addition, communication through frequent phone calls and letters leads immigrant
women to believe that they are creating emotional “bridges” (Parrenas, 2001, p.125-126).
The parents are convincing themselves that they are able to maintain close
relationships and familiarity with their kin despite prolonged separation and
geographical distance. The author argues that unfortunately this leads to
rationalization of even longer separation which has a detrimental effect on mothers’
relationships with their children and their wellbeing (Parrenas, 2001, p.126). Thus,
instead of facing harsh emotional difficulties, mothers in transnational
families choose to repress these emotions which may have dire consequences for
themselves and their children.
According to Parrenas, the experiences of the children
who are growing up in transnational households are strained by the intergenerational
conflict. Unlike their mothers, children often see emotional support more
important than financial care (Parrenas, 2001,p.131). Additionally, children
question the extent of their mothers’ efforts to build emotional “bridges” by
judging their rare visits back home, and level of appreciation their mothers
have for the sacrifices they make (Parrenas, 2001,p.131-132). Moreover, Parrenas
found that despite the support from extended family and kin many children suffer
emotionally. They feel anxious not knowing when they will be able to see their mothers
again, hurt by this prolonged separation, and abandoned by their parents
(Parrenas, 2001, p.136). In part such feelings are imposed by the traditional
gender ideology in the Philippines. Children are raised in the culture that
tends to deemphasize men as primary caregivers and exaggerates the expectations
from the mothers (Parrenas, 2011, p.144).
Furthermore, Parrenas
states that the vulnerability of being abandoned, lost, and physically and
sexually abused is dire but possible consequence of such separation (2001, p.137).
Overall, children stress the importance of the emotional and intimate care and
regardless of financial situation chose for their mothers to work in the Philippines
even if that means economic insecurity (Parrenas, 2001, p.142). Therefore,
despite financial support from their mothers, and help of the extended kin,
children who are being raised in transnational households may suffer
emotionally and physically when their mothers choose to work abroad,
permanently affecting relationships between children and their mothers.
Sedef Arat-Koc (2009) looks at the abusive experiences
of domestic workers in Canada, the majority of whom are immigrant women from the
Philippines. Under the Live-in Caregiver Program, domestics must live in the
same house with their employers; this allows employers to abuse the worker by
relying on their services 24/7, often without paying for such services,
therefore drastically reducing their hourly wage (Arat-Koc, 2009, p. 435). The
author states that most of the work that domestics perform is often done in the
privacy of their employers’ house. At the same time, despite the amount of
effort, the work of domestics is often consumed rapidly by the occupants of the
house and therefore remains invisible to the employer (Arat-Koc,2009,p.433).
Subordination of the worker under the live-in program means that no privacy is available
to domestics and employers are often in full control of their work and personal
life (Arat-Koc, 2009, p. 437) In other words, by living with the employers, the
workers are vulnerable to exploitation, denied any privacy, and their work is
often underappreciated which could be humiliating and stressful.
The worker’s rights are very limited under temporary
work permits. They cannot freely choose and change their employer or the type
of work if they want to stay in Canada, therefore, the only freedom the employee
really has is to return home (Arat-Koc, 2009, p. 440). Arat-Koc argues that since
most of these workers are coming from Third World countries, the likelihood of
them choosing to stay even under abusive work conditions is very high (2009, p.
440). Moreover, under the Live-in Caregiver Program workers can only come as
single persons. The author cites Parrenas’ work as well as her own findings in
the field and concludes that as a result of family separation and difficulties
of reunifications, this “forced separation” can be considered an emotional
abuse (Arat-Koc, 2009, p.446). The combination of the temporary working permits
and live-in conditions of the immigration policy limits the opportunities of immigrant
workers and promotes their vulnerability to emotional and physical abuse.
According to Arat-Koc, these negative consequences of
immigrant domestic workers are the result of the immigration policies and government
structures. Thus, perhaps instead of focusing immigration policies on
“underregulating conditions and overregulating the workers”, the government
should improve conditions of immigrant workers (Arat-Koc, 2009, p. 446). Such
policies can help the experiences of immigrant women by giving them political
rights and allowing them to form unions in order to protect themselves from
exploitative practices by the employers (Arat-Koc, 2009, p.434-435). Moreover Arat-Koc,
refers to underdevelopment of childcare services in Canada, and overall
neo-liberal policies of the state to solve such problems in a privatized manner.
Accordingly, instead of providing better and more affordable childcare services,
parents are left by the state to solve the issue on their own, and the only
solution that the state offers is undervalued services of the immigrant workers
from the less developed countries (Arat-Koc, 2009, p. 446). However, where
Arat-Koc falls short, is that today the pressure on the parents, even in the
dual income families, to solve the problems on their own, means that mothers
are the ones who are responsible for making such arrangements.
Parrenas in this matter provides a more thorough
analysis. According to the author,
gender inequality in both sending and receiving countries is affecting the experiences
of immigrant women (Parrenas, 2001, p.62). First, gender inequality is the
cause of the migration of women in search of better economic opportunities.
These women are often segregated in the labour market and in the family. Their
access to jobs and education is limited to the stereotypic feminine positions
such as teaching, nursing or housework (Parrenas, 2001, p.65). In family life,
they are often being abused by their husbands, and unlike their husbands are not
allowed to be legally divorced, or remarried (Parrenas, 2001, p.67). Thus,
despite educational and labour experience, women choose to migrate to escape rigid
traditional gender norms in the Philippines and find economic opportunities in
more developed countries.
However, according to Parrenas’ analysis on their
arrival to the developed country, these women also enter “international
racialized division of reproductive labour” created by patriarchy and global
capitalism (2001, p. 72). Similarly, to the women from Third World countries,
despite their level of education and financial contribution to the household,
women of the developed countries are still responsible for the household and
childcare reproduction. Therefore, in order to liberate themselves from these responsibilities,
they rely on the help of readily available women from the less developed world.
Moreover, an immigrant woman who may be paid around $1000 a month working in
the U.S, can in turn hire a woman in the Philippines to perform
household and childcare work for her for
around
$40 a
month
(Parrenas,
2001, p.72-75).
This means that instead of being
abolished, gender inequality becomes reinforced and stretches on the
international level where reproductive labour becomes less valued for women
with fewer resources (Parrenas, 2001, p.78). Concentrating on the examination of
Canadian system, Arat-Koc does not develop her analysis to include broader
forces of international gender inequality. Parrenas, in this sense, provides
broad-spectrum analysis from which one could conclude that unless gender
inequality is eliminated in both sending and receiving countries, experiences
of transnational families and women in general are not going to change.
References:
Arat-Koc, S. (2009). The Politics of Family and
Immigration in the Subordination of Domestic Workers in Canada. In B. Fox
(Ed.), SOC214H1: Family Patterns, Gender Relations (pp.432-446). Canada; Oxford
University Press.
Parrenas, R.S. (2001). Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work.
Ch.3, 5. Palo, Alto: Stanford University Press.
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