The globalisation of care: Filipina domestic workers and care for the elderly in Cyprus.

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The globalisation of care: Filipina domestic workers and care for the elderly in Cyprus.

Introduction

The vast majority of paid and unpaid domestic workers are women. Explanations for women's employment frequently resort to crude biological reductionism, which purports to show that women have a range of natural attributes and aptitudes such as 'nimble fingers', 'quick eyes' and greater manual dexterity; rendering them, therefore, more suitable for assembly-line production, exemplified by the women-intensive textile and garment sector. This biological reductionism finds a parallel expression in notions of women as natural carers, and in the concentration of women workers in the lower grades of the caring professions, such as nursing, social work and teaching. One continuity appears in the undervaluing of work carried out by women. The work of a maid is a concentrated example of gendered work characterised by low pay and invisibility. At the same time, foreign domestic workers are recruited in processes that involve both the sending and receiving countries, much of which is processed and monitored, and subject to international and bilateral agreements on immigration, labour rights and social protection. A significant social dimension appears in the presentation of domestic workers as 'young girls'. Many, in fact, are not young girls, and there is significant variation in the age structure between different migrant groups and receiving countries. However, the representation of migrant women as 'girl-children incapable of making decisions about their contracts, pay and terms of employment' (Chin, 1997: 379) is an important social construct, and a conscious strategy adopted by agents, governments and households in the management of women carers.

The growing demand for elderly care has led to an increase in the number of domestic workers employed for this purpose. This is one globally recognisable market response to demographic trends towards an ageing population, which are most pronounced in the high-income economies of Europe and in the East Asian 'newly industrialising countries' (NICS). In the UK, it is estimated that between 1995 and 2031 the number of elderly people aged 65 and over will rise by nearly 57 per cent. The number of the very elderly (aged 85 and over) is projected to rise more rapidly, by around 79 per cent. Almost half of the growth in overall numbers is expected to occur between 2020 and 2031 (PSSRU, 1998: 46). In southern European countries, in parallel with the growing number of elderly people, there is a significant reduction in the average size of the family, with people tending to marry later and to have fewer children. While many of the current elderly are those who had large families in the pre-war period, future generations will progressively have to draw on much smaller numbers of children as potential carers (Mestheneos & Triantafillou, 1993; Dell'Orto & Taccani, 1993; Twigg, 1996).

Trends towards an ageing population have converged with attempts by governments to 'reform' pensions and care for the elderly, typically by increasing the role of the private sector, by the devaluation of the state pension, and by raising the retirement age. These policies have provoked major conflict between trade unions and governments in a number of European countries (Italy, Greece and France), and the fear of retirement has become a critical personal and political issue sweeping across Europe. In the UK, the privatisation of care for the elderly accelerated during the 1980s and 1990s as part of the shift from residential to 'community care' (see Hughes, 1995). Private domestic help tends to be highest amongst single elderly people, and 11 per cent of single elderl...

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