Filipino Overseas Domestic Workers: Contradictions, Resistance, and Implications for Change

Today close to half of the world’s migrants are women and their numbers are rising (Morrison et al., 2007). Indeed ‘women are on the move as never before in history’ (Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002, p. 2). In 2010, the female migration flow was estimated to comprise over 104 million women out of the total estimated 213 million international migrants (UN, 2008). Many women follow a migration flow that their country folk have taken over time, and others are forging new paths—clandestine and legal. Like those who migrated before them, they hope that migration will provide opportunities for education and employment, and allow them to support their families financially, and in some cases escape the hierarchical structures and discriminatory practices and policies in their post-independence home countries.