Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care

Centre for Global Social Policy

This project focuses on issues arising in countries that send migrant caregivers: primarily the two major migrant-sending countries of the Philippines and Indonesia, with a smaller focus on Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

We examine how these sending countries are recruiting and training migrating caregivers, and the strategies care workers from these countries use to make the most of their migration and overseas employment. We also consider the implications of their departures for the people left at home: while migrant caregivers take up employment filling care gaps in the wealthier global north, what are the effects in their local communities?

Our project will carry out fieldwork at two recruitment centres for migrant care workers in the urban centres of Manila and Jakarta. We will also collect data from sending areas where the migrant caregivers’ families live, and where their wages from overseas work are sent.

Our aim is to build a new understanding of the meanings of care labour / love, and migration processes. In so doing, we will build and share knowledge that engages the voices of care workers and their families to inform scholars and policy-makers.

Because many of our research subjects are semi-literate, we also plan to develop a series of audio press releases to be shared with radio and community groups in order to reach care workers themselves.