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Intersectionality and Research: �Focus on Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong ��Denise L Spitzer, PhD�School of Public Health

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��INTERSECTIONALITY �

Shifting constellation of of mutually-constituted markers of social differentiation

Differs from static representations
Does not presume primacy

Social hierarchies and access to health determinants
Power and social justice

As the concept developed, intersectionality has become more often regarded as a shifting constellation of mutually-constituted markers of social differentiation—among them gender, ethnicity, racialized, socioeconomic, migrant, sexual minority status, Indigeneity, disability, age, and geography—which taken together—expose individuals (and groups of individuals) to the deprecations of oppression and, in some iterations, to privilege as well. The number and range of social indicators that must be considered in intersectional analysis is debateable and dependent upon context and problem under investigation; however, most commonly, gender, ethnicity/racialized status, and socioeconomic class, are used.

Importantly, intersectionality is generally distinguished from static, additive approaches to understanding gender that included socioeconomic class and racialized status but failed to examine how categories were co-constituted. Furthermore, we cannot assume that one constituent element of identity or difference within the constellation (e.g. gender) is always of greatest import. In some contexts, class, Indigeneity, migration, or racialized status in concert with other markers could be the most salient feature of oppression (or privilege) of individual or communal experience in specific circumstances.

For me, the work of intersectionality is that is allows us to examine how social beings are situated in and presented to the world as whole entities, and helps uncovers how individuals and groups of individuals are positioned in social hierarchies. As the sinew connecting identity, social structure and the materiality of social location, intersectional status structures access to social and material resources and power. Consequently, intersectionality has implications for health, wellbeing, and social relations, and helps to illuminate health disparities and other forms of inequalities.

Importantly, intersectionality is also slippery. . Where and how people are situated in the social landscape is fluid and ever-shifting, which makes it both difficult to depict visually and textually. I would argue that intersectionality better reflects lived experience, the messiness and fluidity of human lives ensuring that our analyses will always be partial and complex

The uncovering and undermining of power relations and promoting the struggle for social justice lies at the core of intersectional analysis. Focusing on the way in which intersectionality positions individuals and groups of individuals in the social world helps us retain focus on the power relations that underpin the architecture of social landscapes. Furthermore, shifting attention to the construction of these axes of social differentiation under patriarchal capitalism, and deploying critical anti-racist and post-colonial thought reinforces the political and activist orientation of intersectional approaches.

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��TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKERS �

272 million migrants

169 million migrant workers

70 million migrant women workers

39.4 million service sector

11.5 migrant domestic workers

So how does intersectionality help research with migrant domestic workers? To set the context, while humans have been moving around the world for millennia, contemporary neoliberal globalization has intensified migration, but the movement of peoples is not a uniform phenomenon. There are 272 million migrants, among them 169 million are migrant workers, that is people who are not bound for permanent resettlement in another country. National borders are semi-porous membranes and countries of origin, education, and socioeconomic status figure prominently in determining who is allowed to remain in destination countries. Moreover, gender figures prominently in the type of work temporary foreign workers undertake. While I am well aware of the fluidity of both sex and gender, the official statistics I quote here are collected as dichotomous categories. Of the estimated 169 million international migrant workers, 70 million are women of whom 56.4 per cent are employed in the service sector. Many of these women are engaged in health and care work—tending to children, the elderly, and the infirm—in institutional and private settings as personal support, homecare attendants, nursing aides or assistants; 11.5 million are domestic workers.

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��MIGRANT CARE WORK �

Intersectionality and labour migration streams
“Labour of love” lacking economic and social value
Low waged, precarious work
Increased exposure in COVID-19

The intersections of gender, migration, class, nationality, racialized status and work have obvious implications for global labour market migration streams underscoring that these social indicators cannot be considered as separate categories. These factors and their attendant political processes come together to position women temporary foreign workers in particular physical and social places—locally, nationally, and transnationally—to create disparate intersectional vulnerabilities.

Gender ideologies that construct care-work as a labour of love to be undertaken by women devalues its economic and social worth and positions women migrant care-workers in often low-waged and precarious positions, which have become even more inequitable under the conditions of the pandemic. Often engaged with populations at high-risk of COVID-19 infection has increased the exposure of migrant care workers to the coronavirus.

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��MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS IN HONG KONG �

400,000 migrant domestic workers

70+ hours/week
Visa tied to single employer

60% without private room
1/3 not getting 24-hr rest period
Recruitment agencies offer warranties and sales

In 2019, nearly 400,000 MDWs primarily from the Philippines and Indonesia were employed in Hong Kong. MDWs work over 70 hours per week for which they generally earn minimum wage. Tied to a single employer for a two-year renewable contract, MDWs are required to reside with their employers who are expected to provide “suitable” accommodation and either free food or a food allowance.Sixty per cent of MDWs have reported sleeping in a bedroom with their care recipients or a non-bedroom space (e.g. storage area, kitchen).Furthermore, one third of the 1,003 respondents in a 2015 survey of MDWs in Hong Kong claimed they were unable to avail themselves of the legally-mandated weekly 24-hour rest period Employers may also exercise control over food portion and choice. Recruitment agencies that broker contracts may offer warranties for MDWs as though they were household objects by providing replacements within an introductory period, and employers may dismiss MDWs if they fail to meet their expectations. Contracts may be terminated by their employer with either one month’s notice or pay in lieu of notification.

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Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Living and working in the same place as employers can heighten interpersonal tensions as it demands self-surveillance and control over emotions and behaviours. Moreover, the ubiquity of home-based video-surveillance to patrol workers when employers are absent impacts the pace and conduct of their work as they feel unable to take a break. The lack of privacy they encounter in the workplace is not always alleviated on their rest days. MDWs are also subject to public surveillance when they publicly gather on Sundays. The tenuous conditions in which they live, work, and earn for their families, is underscored by the precariousness of their migration status. With minor exceptions, MDWs have two weeks after contract expiry or termination to leave Hong Kong unless they can secure another position. Furthermore, although other migrant workers are eligible to apply for permanent residency status after residing in Hong Kong for eight years, MDWs are excluded from this possibility.

Overall, the working and living conditions have a deleterious impact on health and well-being as self-reported health amongst MDWs is lower than for other Hong Kong residents, worsening with inadequate accommodation, larger household size, challenges with remittance-sending, and abuse; importantly, regular social support from friends has been shown to mitigate these effects.

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��COVID-19 PANDEMIC & MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS

Public health measures, January 2020

Restrictions on mobility, quarantine, school and work closures
Migrant workers stranded

PPE— Short supply and expensive

Migrant domestic workers not included in benefits

Increased workload and abuse
Quarantined in overcrowded designated hostels

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged in Hong Kong in January 2020 engendering a series of public health measures including travel bans, restrictions on mobility and public gatherings, quarantine requirements, and closures of workplaces and schools.These actions led to the immobilization of migrant workers who could neither leave nor return to Hong Kong. Thousands of migrant workers were stranded in the Philippines unable to resume employment in Hong Kong after their leaves. To accommodate migrant workers whose contracts had expired, but were unable to leave, the Hong Kong Government extended employee contracts and the period to search for employment for two months.Early on in the pandemic, PPEs were in short-supply and increasingly expensive; when the Government dispersed PPE to households, they were not always shared with MDWs.Adult Hong Kong residents were provided HKD 10,000 to defray pandemic expenses; however, MDWs, international students, and asylum seekers were excluded from receiving this benefit. Migrant domestic workers who live and work in the same household reported increased workloads, employer expectations that workers provide their own (sometimes scarce and unaffordable) personal protective equipment (PPE), and greater vulnerability to abuse. In June 2020, the Hong Kong Government introduced a policy whereby MDWs were required to present a negative COVID-19 test and quarantine for 14 days (later extended to 21 days) upon arrival, the expenses of which were to be covered by their employers although sometimes workers relied on food delivery from migrant organizations. While others may choose their quarantine accommodation, MDWs must stay in overcrowded designated hostels.

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VICTORIA PARK , HONG KONG IN PRE-PANDEMIC TIMES

Restrictions on gatherings of more than four people and the closure of public recreation areas meant that MDWs who would normally gather on Sundays to socialize, rest, and connect with resources and informational support as noted on this slide were displaced. In those areas where workers once met in large numbers, police increased surveillance and issued fines if individuals were insufficiently separated or exceeded four people. Media reports of these interventions fed into the notion that MDWs were disease carriers and posed a threat to Hong Kong residents. This discourse was reinforced when the Labour Department urged MDWs to remain at home during their rest days and refrain from using public transport and spaces. Some employers interpreted this message as a directive and curtailed workers’ mobility in the name of public health. MDWs were compelled to work even longer hours, undertaking near constant cleaning with harsh chemicals and some were ordered to bathe multiple times a day, which was not demanded of other household members. Increasing need from family at home for pandemic-related expenses heightened fear of job loss; resultantly some MDWs remained in abusive situations.

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“They look at the domestic workers as virus carriers, so therefore, they should be programmed to have mandatory tests and mandatory vaccination that is not mandatory for others. . . We are promoting vaccination, but to have it mandatory from the government is another thing. “

Dolores Ballardares-Pelaez, UNIFIL

Dolores

The Government proposed mandatory vaccinations against COVID-19—only for MDWs—was withdrawn after migrant organizations, who promote vaccination, complained this would further stigmatize MDWs.^\Increased demands from employers, public opprobrium, loss of rest and social support, fear of job loss, and worrying about their families at home, heightened stress amongst MDWs and contributed to high levels of depression.

As Dolores Ballardares-Pelaez, from UNIFIL a Filipino migrant rights organization told me:

They look at the domestic workers as virus carriers, so therefore, they should be programmed to have mandatory tests and mandatory vaccination that is not mandatory for others. . . We are promoting vaccination, but to have it mandatory from the government is another thing.

In addition to migration status, the impact of pandemic responses reflects the intersections of gender and nationality. Care-work and parenting work is often allocated to women, and many MDWs were engaged in transnational parenting, which intensified in this period. Furthermore, employers often display a preference for workers from different nationalities, which ultimately impacts workers’ mobility in the pandemic. Filipinos are most often chosen to work with children as they are viewed as capable of teaching children English whereas Indonesians are regarded as more suitable for working with the elderly for whom English-language skills are deemed less important. Subsequently, in the name of keeping the elderly safe, Indonesian workers were disproportionately refused the right to leave the house on their rest days.

Despite the challenges, MDWs are not wholly bereft. Migrant worker organizations and advocacy groups, labour unions, as well as other faith-based and civil society organizations provide vital support to MDWs. In my recent interviews with advocacy organization representatives, they are deeply concerned about the short- and long-term consequences of the pandemic on the mental health.

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Intersectionality & Health of MDWs in Hong Kong

Precarity and unrelenting stress
Working and living conditions
Access to social support
Gendered and racialized global division of labour
Neoliberal globalization

Very briefly, how does an intersectional analysis help nuance how we understand the health and wellbeing of Filipino and Indonesian MDWs in Hong Kong?

Let’s start at the level of the body. First, in contrast to most other immigrants and migrant workers from the global North, precarity is embedded in the work and lives of migrant domestic workers as failure to please their employers can lead to being terminated, and often loss of their migration status, which has implications for them and their families who may be reliant on their remittances. Lack of control over the pace and method of work, food type and portion, often under surveillance, and the absence of a boundary between work and home, which leaves them vulnerable to physical, sexual, financial, and psychological abuse, are major stressors. and they are subject to unrelenting stress that has notable deleterious effects.

Additionally, some workers, particularly Indonesians, are particularly subject to racism and Islamophobia.

For some social support a major determinant of health, is only available on Sunday,

Familial responsibilities including sending remittances and transnational mothering are particularly gendered, which although sometimes fulfilling, is also stress-inducing.

All of these issues pre-date, but have greatly intensified during the pandemic, particularly as mobility has been curbed and as noted, even more so for Indonesian workers who are more engaged in elder care.

Intersectionality asks us to return to ask how these axes of differentiation have been constructed and whose benefit do they serve? For this reason, we need to re-focus our attention to the broader macro-level to situate the health and wellbeing of Filipino and Indonesian workers who are channeled into service and care work as part of a global gendered and racialized division of labour. Furthermore, we are compelled to consider the gendered and class structure of Hong Kong that engenders the so-called demand for foreign care workers, the role of their own countries’ neoliberal agendas and most notably the machinations of the global North and multilateral organizations such as the IMF and World Bank who profit from these women’s labours and lives. In essence, the health and wellbeing of Filipino and Indonesian mdws cannot be confined to clinical outcomes but must be situated within the context of neoliberal globalization.