MIGRANT FILIPINA DOMESTIC WORKERS AND THE INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF REPRODUCTIVE LABOR

TLDR

The article investigates how reproductive labor is politicized within globalized economies. The study analyzes a three‑tier transfer of reproductive labor—between middle‑class women in host countries, migrant Filipina domestic workers, and impoverished Third‑World women—using in‑depth interviews to expose the contradictions faced by workers positioned between these tiers. The findings reveal that commodified reproductive work is embedded in a global market division of labor that structurally drives the migration of Filipina domestic workers.

Abstract

This article examines the politics of reproductive labor in globalization. Using the case of migrant Filipina domestic workers, the author presents the formation of a three-tier transfer of reproductive labor in globalization between the following groups of women: (1) middle-class women in receiving nations, (2) migrant domestic workers, and (3) Third World women who are too poor to migrate. The formation of this international division of labor suggests that reproduction activities, as they have been increasingly commodified, have to be situated in the context of the global market economy. This division of labor is a structural process that determines the migration of Filipina domestic workers. As such, this article also uses in-depth interviews to examine and enumerate the contradictions that migrant Filipina domestic workers experience in their family and work lives as a result of “being in the middle” of this division of labor.