Migrant domestic work: From precarious to precarisation

Abstract

Migrant domestic work is the archetypal manifestation of precarious employment. In most countries into which women from Asia are recruited, the absence of regulations prescribing minimum employment conditions or protections makes for exploitative and abusive work practices, and limited-duration work visas underscore this embedding of insecurity and uncertainty. We look beyond regulating employment conditions as a remedy for precariousriess to highlight how gender and racial norms frame the forrnation of the global care chain, which in turn rests on the making of a new class of worker. The actors involved in this process of proletarianisation - the state, labour agents, recruitrnent and training enterprises, insurers, bureaucrats, employment placement agencies and money remitters - lay claim to workers' earnings and contribute to the more transformative process of precarisation.