Gender, Migration and Domestic Service (Routledge International Studies of Women and Place)

Gender, Migration and Domestic Service examines a wide range of migration patterns which have arisen, both on a national and international scale, exposing the tensions and difficulties which arise from this kind of movement. These include legal issues, both in terms of immigration laws and the contractual agreements (or lack or them) available to domestic workers; cultural and language diversities and barriers; the impact of the disruption to families caused by females moving to live-in employment and thus away from the family home; and empowerment issues on two levels - where the employer experiences an increase in status from employing domestic workers, and where the domestic worker experiences a change in status by contributing to the family income or by their workplace providing an arena for social interaction which would otherwise be unavailable. Case studies are taken from Europe, North America, South America, the Caribbean, South Asia, South-East Asia and Africa and are based on fieldwork using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The various crosscutting aspects such as class, status, race and ethnicity, gender relations, violence, state controls on migrants and motives of migrants will be drawn out, and regional and national differences exposed.