THE GLOBAL MIGRATION OF FILIPINO DOMESTIC WORKERS

TWENTY-NINE-YEAR OLD NENE SORIANO is one of approximately 4,000 Filipino au pairs in Denmark. As an au pair, Nene works only thirty hours a week, during which she mostly performs light cleaning and occasionally helps in the kitchen and with afternoon child care. Her workload is a vast improvement over her previous job in Singapore, where she had been a domestic worker for five and a half years, working every day from 6 am to 10 pm. Her duties included general cleaning, cooking, washing all the household laundry by hand, cleaning the car, and child care. By relocating from Singapore to Denmark, Nene saw not only a reduction in her workload but also a jump in her salary from US$270 to US$580 per month.

Nene and I met in the Roman Catholic Church of St. Anne's in Copenhagen during the summer of 2012. Nene hoped Denmark would be a launching pad to the European Union and eventually Italy, where she wanted to secure long-term employment as a domestic worker. Italy is an attractive final destination for someone like Nene not only for the promise of long-term residency but also for its amnesty programs that regularize the status of undocumented domestic workers (Codini, 2010). Italy granted amnesty to undocumented migrants in 1987, 1990, 1995, 2002, and 2009 (Parreñas, 2008b; Codini, 2010). Yet, without established networks, Italy is not an easy destination to reach.

Not wedded to the idea of being a domestic worker, Nene was also open to finding a husband to secure long-term residency. Her preference for white men encouraged her to actively participate in online dating sites, where she looked for a potential husband from Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or the United Kingdom. Nene even maintained communication with a pen pal serving time in a federal penitentiary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nene had also asked me to introduce her to a potential partner among my friends in the United States. Though I was unsuccessful in finding her a match, I later learned that she did not need my help after all. Quite attractive, Nene eventually married a Norwegian man nearly twenty years her senior in the fall of 2013, after meeting him through an online dating site. Nene now lives with him in Norway, where she is a stay-at-home mom.

Nene's story provides a glimpse of Filipino domestic workers' wide range of migration. Her goal of becoming a long-term resident outside the Philippines also points to the continued construction of Italy and the United States as coveted destinations in the diaspora, as they are but two of four locations — along with Canada and Spain — that have historically provided domestic workers with a gateway to permanent residency. Lastly, her story shows that domestic work takes multiple forms, ranging in her case from au pair to child care worker to all-around cleaner; is a long-term career for migrant women; and, for some like Nene, is tied to marriage and desires, fantasies that exceed political-economic approaches to understanding labor markets and migration processes.

A culture of emigration is pervasive in the Philippines. Migrants include land- and sea-based workers. Women primarily work on land, and the majority of them are domestic workers like nannies, housecleaners, and caregivers for the elderly. Domestic work, according to the UN International Labour Organization (ILO), refers to "work performed in or for a household or households." Filipina women are the domestic workers par excellence of globalization. As they did in the 1990s, they work across the globe, including in East Asia, West Asia, North America, and Western Europe. In 2010, the top destinations for domestic workers and caregivers from the Philippines included Canada, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Israel, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. With no migration recruitment program, the United States has never been an official destination for Filipino migrant laborers seeking domestic work, but it has been reached by those migrating with a tourist or immigrant visa.

The number of newly deployed Filipino migrant domestic workers has steadily increased through time, from approximately 60,000 in 2008 to 80,000 in 2009 and 100,000 in 2010. According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), women make up a disproportionate bulk of these workers: In 2008, 57,354 women left to do domestic work in contrast to only 2,835 men; 78,389 as compared to 2,395 in 2009; and 103,630 versus 2,245 in 2010. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Filipino migrants doing domestic work around the world. These official figures do not include rehires as well as those who leave the country as undocumented workers and those who secure employment outside official channels, for instance someone who departs as a tourist and secures employment once in the destination country. As these Philippine government figures are based solely on migrants annually deployed as temporary contract workers by the POEA, they also do not include the mostly female au pairs whose outmigration is processed by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, the Philippine government branch responsible for the departure of those seeking permanent residency abroad (for example, spouses of foreigners and those leaving the country with an immigrant visa), as well as those who are relocating abroad but without the intention of securing migrant employment (for example, students).

While the Philippine government does not provide an estimated count of migrant domestic workers, neither does the ILO, which, in its study of domestic workers, reports that data limitations make it "not possible to give a reliable estimate of the share of migrants among domestic workers." Yet it is probably safe to say that at least 50 percent, or 1.4 million, of the estimated 2.8 million female temporary migrant workers from the Philippines are domestic workers.

PATHS OF MIGRATION

The outmigration of Filipina domestic workers is not a historical accident but emerged from the state's promotion of migrant labor exportation. In the early 1970s, President Ferdinand Marcos institutionalized the export of labor as an economic strategy when he implemented the "manpower exchange programme" (Basch et al., 1994). Government ministers and President Marcos himself canvased for the importation of Filipino workers into East Asia, West Asia, Europe, and North America. The establishment of POEA in 1982 only solidified the country's economic strategy of exporting labor, which the government promotes not only by assisting departing migrants but also by pursuing "marketing missions" and securing memoranda of understanding on the hiring of migrant workers with an array of labor-receiving countries. The annual number of migrants has expectedly increased since the 1970s. Whereas fewer than 50,000 per annum departed in the early to mid-1970s, this number has since escalated, jumping from 266,243 in 1981 to more than 700,000 in 1994 and more than a million per annum since 2009 (Martin, 1993; POEA, 2013).

Migrant Filipina domestic workers are located in more than 160 destinations, raising the question of how one chooses a particular destination. In the diaspora, that is usually based on what one can afford, with the cost largely decided by potential wage earnings in a particular place. In the mid-1990s, recruitment agencies charged approximately US$600 in fees to prospective domestic workers in Hong Kong, where the standard labor contract indicated a monthly salary of approximately US$410 (Constable, 1997). Today, the fees have jumped to US$3,000. In contrast, Singapore remains a more affordable destination than Hong Kong, costing migrants only an initial fee of US$115 to $230 and a three- to five-month salary deduction (approximately US$350 per month). Even lower-cost destinations than Singapore are the Gulf Cooperative Council nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, which cost prospective migrants only US$115. This figure covers the costs of their passport, medical clearance, and other documents required for migration. But although the Gulf nations cost less, domestic workers' wages are lower there.

A more expensive destination for domestic workers is Israel, which costs up to US$5,000 in placement fees (Liebelt, 2008: 108). There, domestic workers can earn anywhere from US$500 to US$800 per month (Liebelt, 2011). In Canada, domestic workers earn more. For this reason, the cost of migration is significantly higher for those coming directly from the Philippines, reaching up to US$16,000 (Paul, 2011: 1855). Similarly, the fees that travel agencies charge to go to Italy are enormous, having steadily increased over time along with Italy's reputation as a humane destination that offers high wages and minimal risk of deportation.

The migration costs shouldered by the family of one woman I interviewed, Michelle, illustrate this steady increase. Although her older sister initially paid US$3,250 to migrate to Italy in 1986, it cost Michelle US$4,250 to follow her in 1989. In 1994 a third sister had to pay the exorbitant amount of US$12,000. Women who migrated to Rome in the early 1990s usually paid anywhere from US$6,400 to US$8,000 to enter Italy. By 2011, fewer individuals were using "travel agency" services. Migrants more often entered cost free as the direct hires of Italian employers. However, I did meet one woman who paid US$12,000 to enter Italy clandestinely; she used a Paraguayan passport, which exempted her from having to obtain a visa. Also requiring economic resources, the United States has long been an elusive destination for prospective migrant domestic workers. If not entering via family reunification, they enter with a tourist visa that requires proof of property, investments, and savings in the Philippines.

Cost is not the only factor that determines where migrants go. Educational qualifications matter as well, as those without a high-school degree are restricted from employment in most destinations in Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, for example), and those without at least two years of tertiary education cannot be domestic workers in Canada. Aspirations also determine migration paths. Migrant domestic workers who desire permanent residency will set migration to Europe or the Americas as their long-term goal. Others may view migration as a strategy for accumulating enough capital to operate a business in the Philippines. These migrants would be comfortable setting their sites on lower-cost destinations. Individuals I met in Dubai, for instance, would rather invest the money they earn in a business than pay to migrate somewhere else. Religion can also determine a location, with Muslims preferring to migrate to the Gulf region (Silvey, 2000).

As established in migration studies, social networks and "migrant institutions" determine one's migration pattern (Goss and Lindquist, 1995; Castles and Miller, 1998). Migrants will relocate to follow friends, family, and neighbors. This had been the case for many women I met in Singapore, the United States, and Italy, indicating their reliance on social networks. In contrast, migrants in the United Arab Emirates usually relied on a "migrant institution" and only went there because it was the first destination offered to them by the recruitment agency in the Philippines. For those relying on a "migrant institution," a destination is determined not necessarily by the prospective migrant's networks but by the institutionalized relationships that the recruitment agency has forged with partnering agencies in specific destinations across the globe.

Across the diaspora, the migration patterns of most Filipina domestic workers do not fit the classic assimilation narrative, as their children do not necessarily follow them and integrate into the society (Portes and Rumbaut, 1996). This is because domestic workers are disqualified from permanent residency in most destinations, including Israel, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This exclusion results in varying paths of migration for Filipina domestic workers, with many working in different countries prior to retiring in the Philippines or before settling in one of the few countries that grant them permanent residency (for example, Italy, Canada, the United States, and Spain). Although some migrate directly for a prolonged stay in only one destination, they do not necessarily settle there permanently. For instance, their children do not migrate but instead stay behind in the Philippines; moreover, many plan to retire in the Philippines and not the migrant host society. This had been the case with Rose, who did domestic work for ten years in Dubai, as well as Aida, who worked in Singapore for twenty-four years.

Three of the most salient paths migrant domestic workers take include direct migration, serial migration, and step migration. Direct migration applies to the majority of my interviewees in Rome and Los Angeles, as most migrated directly from the Philippines to each of these destinations. In contrast, serial migrants (Siu, 2007) relocate to new destinations between labor contracts. These migrants are often searching for a "new experience" and a "good employer," prolonging their stay when they find one and moving on when they do not. Serial migrants have managed to extend their career in migrant domestic work by moving across the diaspora; for example, one might work for four years in Kuwait, then three years in Dubai. Lastly, some are what Anju Mary Paul (2011) would describe as "stepwise international migrants," referring to those who participate in a multistage process of international labor migration. In this scenario, a typical migration path would begin in a low-cost destination such as the United Arab Emirates, then proceed to a medium-cost one like Taiwan or Hong Kong, and then eventually move upward to coveted and high-cost locations such as Canada and Italy.

What differentiates serial migration from stepwise migration is the lack of upward mobility in the former; a serial migrant moves across borders within low-cost destinations like Jordan, Kuwait, and Singapore. Conditions from one destination to another do not necessarily improve in serial migration, suggesting that this type of movement exceeds rational calculation. Conditions that would extrinsically improve the quality of life for domestic workers include wage rates, family reunification policies, citizenship eligibility, or labor benefits such as health coverage and access to a day off. Considering the various paths of migration in the diaspora, who chooses one path of migration over another, and why? What factors determine the migration trajectory of domestic workers? And what can specific mobility paths tell us about the organization and segmentation of the Filipina domestic worker diaspora?

STEP MIGRANTS

Sociologist Anju Mary Paul (2011) describes a four-tier hierarchy of destinations for Filipino domestic workers. At the bottom are the low-cost destinations of countries in West Asia, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain; at the third tier are the Southeast Asian destinations of Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei; in the second tier are the East Asian destinations of Taiwan and Hong Kong; and finally the top and most coveted in the diaspora are the United States, Canada, Spain, and Italy. Paul (2011) argues that Filipino domestic workers engage in "stepwise migration," meaning the process of embarking on a hierarchical progression across countries in the diaspora as they make their way toward their preferred destination. The concept of "stepwise migration" adds an element of intention to the long-established concept of "step migration," described by the International Organization of Migration as "the mobility from an original residence to first one and then another destination, e.g. in a 'stepwise' or sequential fashion" (International Organization of Migration, 2008: 51).