Multinational Maids
Stepwise Migration in a Global Labor Market

Explores how global markets, middlemen and destination aspirations drive the 'stepwise migrations' of Filipino and Indonesian migrant domestic workers.

Anju Mary Paul (Author)

9781316641378, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 January 2019

416 pages, 7 b/w illus. 1 map
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.6 kg

'This book is an important examination of contemporary international migration, as it presents a necessary and timely challenge to the prevailing paradigms of permanent settlement and binational approach to transnationalism. … this is an important book that not only challenges dominant paradigms in migration studies but, more importantly, invites further theorizations of the under-studied phenomenon of multinational migration.' Maria Cecilia Hwang, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia

Multinational Maids offers an in-depth investigation into the international migrations of Filipino and Indonesian migrant domestic workers. The author taps on her rigorous study of more than 1,200 subjects' migration trajectories to reveal how these migrants work in a series of overseas countries to improve their lives and, in some cases, seek permanent residence in another country. Challenging the portrayal of Asian migrant domestic workers as victims of globalization, Multinational Maids reveals migrants' agency and strategic thinking under conditions of constraint. At the market level, the establishment of guestworker programmes for migrant domestic workers in multiple countries has created a global labor market. A transnational diaspora shapes migrants' evolving destination imaginaries, while manpower recruitment and placement agencies create transnational mobility structures. In addition, differing destination hierarchies and degrees of access to resources lead to the adoption of divergent stepwise trajectories. Written in an accessible manner, Multinational Maids appeals to migration scholars, policymakers, activists and students.

1. Introduction
Part I. The Context: 2. Key concepts in stepwise international labor migration
3. Origin stories
4. Global but uneven: the market for migrant domestic workers
Part II. The Actors: 5. Stepwise journeys, compared and contrasted
6. The world according to migrant domestic workers
7. Inside the stepwise migrant's suitcase
8. The agents of stepwise migration
Part III. The Aftermath: 9. The end of the road
10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International law [LB], Society & culture: general [JF]