Paulina LawsinFeminisation Of Migration In The Philippines
Wherever you go, there’s always a Filipino worker out there. They are scattered in 193 countries and territories as well as in ocean plying vessels. The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (COF) classifies the economic migration by Filipinos into permanent migrants, temporary migrants or the “Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)” and the undocumented migrants. The 2019 Survey on Overseas Filipinos reveals that of the estimated 2.2 million OFWs, more than half or 59% of them are women. Saudi Arabia continued to be the most preferred destination followed by the United Arab Emirates, Hongkong and Taiwan. Majority of them provide household services to families in the Middle East. There are Filipino nurses in the hospitals of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Yemen. They are also in Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom while compassionate caregivers tend the elderly in Israel. Filipina migrant workers are mostly young, between 25 to 44 years old with a minimum of at least ten years of schooling and can understand and speak English.
Town mates Lala and Easter are sisters who were government employees in the province. Both in their mid-forties and with children in college, their dream of visiting the Holy Land while earning higher income came true when they worked as caregivers for the elderly in Israel. Their pragmatism paid off, as they saved and gradually invested their income in real property.
Sustained economic prosperity in the tiger economies of Asia, (Japan, Singapore, So. Korea and Taiwan), have drawn well-educated women to managerial and professional occupations. To cope with traditional gender roles in the households and the demands of their careers, they imported domestic help from neighbours – the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh among others. Thus the professional careers of women and men in many parts of the world are supported by hundreds of Filipino women who bravely left the confines of their homes to take care of children who are not their own, clean houses, do other people’s laundry, learn to cook and prepare foreign dishes far different from their native kitchen.
Filipino women started their training as early as six years old. They are tasked to help out in the kitchen, clean the house, washcloths, and babysit younger siblings while the boys were allowed to play outside the house without doing the house chores. Both girls and boys are given equal opportunity to get an education. They are expected to study hard, perform better in school, get a college education, find a job, get married and have children.
This life pattern remains the same despite the increased involvement of Filipino women in professional and public life. Because parents are more lenient with boys, there is lower participation, and lower survival rates among boys than girls in the elementary and secondary level.
This resulted in multiple burdened Filipino women who are better educated and have the ability and drive to earn their own income. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 which assessed 134 countries on how well they divide resources and opportunities amongst male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources, the Philippines ranked 16th out of 134 countries, making it the only Asian country to enter in the top ten since 2006. Other countries in the top ten are Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Lesotho and Switzerland.
Economic participation must be in the genetic make-up of the Filipino woman. She is willing to venture to foreign shores in order to find a better paying job, become financially independent and provide a better life for her family back home. Thus, there is a pronounced feminisation in migration in the Philippines.
Many of those who became permanent migrants are Pinays who were married to foreign nationals in the USA (41.55%), Japan (29.04%), Australia, Canada, Germany, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, So. Korea, Norway, Sweden and others. Filipinas insist on getting a job in their new country so that they can earn and send money to their parents to support the education of their siblings, donate to the church during town fiestas and build or renovate their parent’s abode in the Philippines. Soon, their sisters, cousins and female friends will find a suitable partner and migrate to a foreign land, too. Women are open to learning a new language in a different environment, adapt to a foreign culture and adjust to age and economic differences to better withstand interracial marriages.
Lack of sustainable jobs, low pay and high cost of living compelled hundreds of nurses and teachers to go abroad and accept work as domestic helpers which results in deskilling of migrant women which represents a high proportion in the brain drain, especially in health and education sectors. Problematic marriages also push the married Filipina mother to work abroad.
Meet Izza and Jean both hardworking professionals who would have had promising careers in the Philippines, had they stayed. Izza was a political science graduate from the leading state university in the Philippines. A dutiful learner, she graduated ahead of her class and immediately enrolled in law school with financial support from her parents. She married a civil engineer and bore two children.
The handsome husband who didn’t have a stable job, wasted his time drinking with friends. Izza, who did not want to depend on her parents for her children’s needs and was frustrated by her husband’s irresponsible behaviour, decided to quit law school and apply for a job abroad. She worked as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia and then moved to Kuwait to serve as an office assistant in a media agency.
Her husband lived with another woman and had children while her parents took care of her two children. Izza assumed sole financial responsibility for the children’s needs. She worked in Kuwait until the children finished their college education. After 19 years of persistence in the Middle East, she went home for good to manage a beach resort and a private elementary school in her hometown that she had helped put up with her earnings.
In-law problems and a financially abusive sea-faring husband compelled Jean to leave her work in an orthopaedic hospital and look for a job elsewhere. She worked as a physical therapist in Bahrain and then moved to the United States. Aside from supporting her child until she became a pharmacist, Jean also provided financial support to her parents and siblings. She is now an immigrant in the US with her new family.
While the men overseas receive higher pay, women’s contribution cannot be underestimated considering their sheer numbers and spending values. Researchers proved that when women earn, their incomes are mostly spent on their family. Since 10% of households and the Philippine economy enjoy the fruits of the migrant worker’s sweat and tears, it is fitting that gender-responsive policy options should be in place to protect the rights and welfare of women migrant workers and mitigate the social costs of migration. Allow me to contribute my two cents’ worth.
Firstly, the government should mobilise remittances to develop local economic enterprises that will create employment opportunities and promote entrepreneurship, especially among women starting from a migrant workers’ families so that they will not be dependent on remittances from abroad.
Secondly, instil savings and investment consciousness so that OFWs and their dependents will redirect expenses to wealth creation rather than depletion.
Thirdly, ensure that participants of Pre Departure Orientation Seminars (PDOS), after being provided with adequate information, can articulate the policies and culture of host countries, migrant workers’ rights and responsibilities, what to do and where to seek help in case of emergency and abuse by employers.
Fourthly, advocate with the host countries to strictly monitor compliance by their citizens of the provisions of the migrant worker’s contract; to strictly observe the weekly day-off schedule, and to educate potential employers on migrant worker’s rights.
Fifthly, provide FREE basic language training to household service workers and caregivers especially Arabic and Chinese prior to departure and FREE internet literacy so they can contact their families and loved ones. Lastly, involve non-government organisations, migrant workers informal groups, faith-based organizations and local government units in both sending and receiving countries in developing and delivering continuing language, life skills, financial management training and peer counselling and support to the migrant workers and their family.
Women household-based workers and caregivers of the world unite. They clean homes and clothes, pots and pans, take care of the sick, the elderly and the young. Let the hands that rock the cradle, rock the world.
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This article was first posted in World Pulse, a global social network where every woman’s voice can rise up to transform her community. World Pulse lifts and unites the voices of women from some of the most unheard regions of the world.
