Migrant domestic workers (also known as foreign home care workers, foreign domestic workers, foreign domestic helpers, transnational domestic workers, foreign domestic employees, overseas domestic workers and domestic migrant workers) are, according to the International Labour Organization’s Convention No. 189 and the International Organization for Migration, any persons "moving to another country or region to better their material or social conditions and improve the prospect for themselves or their family," engaged in a work relationship performing "in or for a household or households." Domestic work itself can cover a "wide range of tasks and services that vary from country to country and that can be different depending on the age, gender, ethnic background and migration status of the workers concerned." These particular workers have been identified by some academics as situated within "the rapid growth of paid domestic labor, the feminization of transnational migration, and the development of new public spheres." Prominent discussions on the topic include the status of these workers, reasons behind the pursue in this labour, recruitment and employment practices in the field, and various measures being undertaken to change the conditions of domestic work among migrants.
Migrant domestic workers in the world
The status of migrant domestic workers is unique in the field of labor, due to the site of their employment: the home. The domestic sphere, by definition, "is imagined as a place for private individuals, not political or indeed market actors." Due to their embeddedness in what can be considered the "private sphere", some analysts have gone so far as to equate domestic laborers with members of the employers’ families, a dynamic made all the more complex by these workers' status as migrants. Historically, they have not been regarded as the same form of labor as manufacturers or doctors. From the end of the Second World War until the mid-1980s, for instance, "most ILO Conventions explicitly excluded domestic workers from the protections afforded by most employment Conventions."
The lack of knowledge concerning the composition of this workforce has been attributed to this historical lack of attention and advocacy. Current estimates place the number of domestics anywhere between 53 and 100 million. The ILO, in 2010, projected the following distribution of domestic workers throughout the world:
Source: Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection, International Labour Organization. Geneva. 2013
Domestic work is a highly gendered profession. Globally, 83% of domestic workers are women, of whom a majority are women migrant workers. However, due, to "the heterogeneity, irregularity and invisibility of domestic and care work," statistics can never be comprehensive.
Relationship with international migration
The migration of domestic workers can lead to several different effects both on the countries that are sending workers abroad and countries that are receiving domestic workers from abroad. One particular relationship between countries sending workers and countries receiving workers is that the sending country can be filling gaps in labor shortages of the receiving country. This relationship can be potentially beneficial for both countries involved because the demand for labor is being met and fulfilled by workers' demand for jobs. This relationship however can prove to be quite complicated and not always beneficial. When unemployment in a receiving country rises migrant domestic workers are not only no longer needed but their presence can be detrimental to domestic workers of that country.
When international migration began to flourish the assumed migrant worker was typically considered to be a man. What studies are now starting to show is that women are dominating large numbers of the international migration patterns by taking up large percentages of domestic workers that leave their home country in search for work as a domestic laborer in another country.