Filipino and Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong: Their Life Courses in Migration

Abstract

This article presents a portrayal of Filipino and Indonesian female domestic workers’ life courses in migration, using the life history calendar data from the 2017 survey of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. Applying sequence analysis, we first analyzed migration trajectory features such as individual migration trajectories, duration spent in each state, and longitudinal diversity of state distributions. We found that Indonesian domestic workers, compared with their Filipino counterparts, are more diverse in their migration histories, indicating involvements in serial migration. We also conducted a cluster analysis of the domestic workers’ migratory trajectories. The analysis yielded three meaningful clusters/types of migrant workers—those moved late in life, those who participated in serial migration, and those migrated directly from their home country to Hong Kong. Finally, we investigated the effect of a complex migration history on job satisfaction and the characteristics of membership in the three ideal-typical migration types among the domestic workers older than 39 years.

Physical and Mental Health of Live-In Female Migrant Domestic Workers: A Randomly Sampled Survey in Hong Kong

“…This is consistent with the literature showing that age of migration was negatively associated with mental health (Takeuchi et al, 2007). Liao and Gan (2020) also suggested differential migratory trajectories among domestic workers, the health effects of which may warrant further investigation.…”

Interactive Visual Exploration of Longitudinal Historical Career Mobility Data

“…Most studies are hypothesis-driven and focus on the empirical analysis of predefined groups over a short period using statistical or model-based approaches [18], [21]. A more recent generation of studies employs sequence analysis to examine the entire career and classifies careers into latent groups according to similarities [16], [17]. These approaches are semi-automatic and ad hoc, and have difficulty accommodating large datasets with multiple attributes [15], [16].…”

“…Second, extracting and highlighting social groups and social relationships from this large dataset is non-trivial. Existing sociological methods for extracting social relationships and latent groups based on similarities [15], [16], [17] require specialized expertise and are ad-hoc. Highlighting the groups and social relationships of interest in their overall context without overwhelming the user with detail heightens the challenge.…”

Data Collection for Migrant Live-In Domestic Workers: A Three-Stage Cluster Sampling Method

“…The final data set was used in various studies featured in this special issue. Lai and Fong (2020) used the data set to explore the relationship between workplace environment and workers’ experience of aggression and violence; Liao and Gan (2020) focused on MDWs’ life courses in migration; Chung and Mak (2020) examined the effects of employment conditions on the physical and mental health of the MDWs; Ye and Chen (2020) focused on the health effects of the MDWs’ family and friendship networks; and Tong (2020) examined whether MDWs’ human and social capitals are associated with their salary scale, working conditions, and work rights protection.…”