A Silent Justification of Poverty?

Cover of "Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, a...

Cover via Amazon

Anonymous student post

The fact that there is a global transfer going on in the realm of women’s work (mostly child work and housework) in affluent countries, where migrant woman from third world countries are being utilized as emotional (for child care) resources replacing the mother’s work in the house as nannies, caretakers surprised and disturbed me at the same time.

The cause of this transfer trend is that in western countries, not only are men independent and serve as breadwinners of their family, but woman have joined this equation and as a result, have become to taken by their work, leaving them no time to do housework as well as providing emotional care for their children (child care).

In a crude fasion, Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild explain in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy that this demand gap in affluent countries (described as a “care deficit”) pulls Third World migrants, in other words, poverty stricken situations pushes the migrants to enter and fix the care deficit.

Though this can be glorified by affluent countries that they are providing opportunities for the poor, this cycle works well if the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As global inequality progresses, the more immigrant workforces are imported to affluent countries.

Another crude factor that makes this possible is the dual emotional and psychological burden the workers go through. This is caused by the physical separation between her and the girl or child she is taking care of, and the inability to physically and emotionally connect with the worker’s real child.

Sustaining a healthy emotional connection is another burden altogether. Whether migrant workers can sustain an emotional connection with their children back home depends on how the children or other family members perceive them. This changes depending on how the parent communicates her situation to the child. The more the parent seems to be struggling for the family, the more emotionally close the child would feel.

On the contrary, the more they seem to be struggling for themselves, seem selfish in their reason to migrate in the first place, the child is more likely to feel emotionally detached. It seems as if affluent countries of the west are silently contributing and justifying global inequality at the cost of dual psycological stress the migrant workers go through.