Transnational Care Labor: Lecture Notes from Liberating Economics

- Women are concentrated in lower-paying occupations that are also less likely to come
with benefits such as retirement plans, health insurance, or other job-related supports,
which places women at higher risks of poverty
- Migrant workers are more likely to be among the working poor than other groups, as
are black and Hispanic women
- Poor women from the global South are increasingly migrating to the global North to
take work as nannies and maids in households that can afford it
o Because even low wages from a global North perspective are higher than the
incomes they could earn back home, the labor of these migrant workers is
relatively cheap to the families who hire them
- Transnational care labor is when mostly women leave from global South countries to
provide care services to households in wealthy countries
- The informal work sector of transnational labor widens income inequalities and
increases the likelihood that peoples’ livelihoods will be precarious
o The lack of labor rights protection and social benefits put women in unsafe
working conditions, at a greater risk for sexual harassment, and without a safety
net
- The ILO and other organizations argue that balancing informality is a major challenge for
sustainable development because it widens inequality and precarity
o The ILO pushes for a global commitment to reversing processes of labor
informalization and fostering labor markets that provide decent, regulated, fairly
paid, protected work
- Transnational caring labor has been greatly expanding since the 1980s
- The demand for migrant help in wealthier nations has been fueled by a care crisis in the
global North as more women move into the paid labor force, escalaing the need for
affordable paid care for children and aging populations
- The rise in poverty in global South countries has caused women in global South to seek
higher-paying earning opportunities overseas
- Policies toward migration in receiving countries also shape the experiences of migrant
care workers and the differential power relationships that structure the
employer/employee relationship
o Some nations do not issue work permits for domestic workers, nannies, or other
care workers, and as a result many workers may end up undocumented
o It is harder for domestic migrant workers to resist exploitative conditions at work
lest their employers turn them into immigration authorities
- In some countries legal migration is facilitated through a visa sponsorship system, such
as in the UAE
o Workers are tied to a particular employer for the entire term of their contract
and can be arrested or fined for leaving early (shifting the balance of power)
 A study by the Human Rights Watch in the UAE showed that migrant
workers workers sixteen to twenty-one hours a day with few days off,
earning as little as 15 cents an hour, and often sleeping under stairs or on
living room floors, and receiving a substandard diet
 Others are subject to physical and sexual abuse
- Most of transnational care labor work is isolating and exhausting, and extremely low
paid