Filipino Home Care Workers: Invisible Frontline Workers in the COVID-19 Crisis in the United States

Abstract

Filipino home care workers are at the frontlines of assisted living facilities and residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs), yet their work has largely been unseen. We attribute this invisibility to the existing elder care crisis in the United States, further exacerbated by COVID-19. Based on quantitative and qualitative data with Filipino workers before and during the COVID-19 crisis, we find that RCFEs have failed to comply with labor standards long before the pandemic where the lack of state regulation denied health and safety protections for home care workers. The racial inequities under COVID-19 via the neoliberal approach to the crisis puts home care workers at more risk. We come to this analysis through Critical Immigration Studies framing Filipino labor migration as it is produced by neoliberalism and Racial Capitalist constructs. Last, while the experiences of Filipino home care workers during the pandemic expose the elder care industry’s exploitation, we find that they are also creating strategies to take care of one another.

“I'm sick of being called a hero – I want to get paid like one”: Filipino American frontline workers' health under conditions of COVID-19 and racial capitalism

“…In addition, compared to White counterparts, Filipino nurses (RNs) report lack of advancement and burnout as occupational stressors yet are less likely to consider leaving their position ( 14 ). Other research with Filipino home-health workers and those employed in nursing homes and assisted living facilities underscores exploitative employment conditions (e.g., irregular or lack of mandated rest and meal breaks), lack of safety protections (e.g., limited personal protective equipment, or PPE), risk of physical injury on the job, and lack of health insurance or limited access to medical care ( 15 ) that existed prior to the pandemic. Many of the Filipino workers in healthcare and caregiving are migrants ( 16 ), with research showing a positive association between job-related stressors and chronic health conditions ( 17 ) as well as a link between job dissatisfaction and psychological distress ( 18 ) among Filipino migrants overall.…”

An interdisciplinary critical lens on the herstorical contributions and health outcomes among Filipinx American women.

“…Although much attention focused on nurses and doctors as frontline workers during the pandemic, formal and nontraditional FilAm home care workers in assisted living facilities and private home care facilities have been largely omitted from the discourse (Nasol & Francisco-Menchavez, 2021), many of whom are undocumented, working under the table (without official paperwork for hire) or are family members. This vulnerable subgroup of FilAm frontline workers is subjected to high-risk environments with problematic labor and safety standards prepandemic; the pandemic exacerbated the racial inequalities many FilAm elderly/disabled health care workers face.…”

Immobilised by the pandemic: Filipino domestic workers and seafarers in the time of COVID‐19

“…As in other countries in the Global North, Filipino care workers in Canada have filled significant labour gaps due to ongoing childcare and eldercare crises. Yet, as Nasol and Francisco‐Menchavez (2021) have pointed out, writing about care workers in the United States, the conditions of their already invisiblised work in these ‘nonhospital settings’ worsened during the pandemic (on the UK, see Galam, 2020). Due to weak labour regulations in the private home, not only did many domestic workers and live‐in care workers deal with numerous health and safety risks at their workplace, mounting fears of job loss and wage insecurity kept many workers tied to their employers under conditions of increased surveillance.…”