“Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy”

1. “Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy” Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, in Rothenberg, Ed., Beyond Borders: Thinking Critically About Global Issues, 2006.

2. GL has transformed work/family life for women in both rich & poor countries • Women from poor countries are moving to rich ones, to work as nannies, maids & sex workers • Many women in rich countries are succeeding in “male world” careers only by turning over care of children, elderly parents, and homes to women from the Third World • These women typically lack help from male partners

3. The female underside of globalization • Millions of women from poor countries in the south migrate to do the “women’s work” of the north – work that affluent women are no longer able or willing to do • Migrant women often leave their own children back home, in the care of grandmothers, sisters, sisters-in-law

4. Pattern of female migration reflects a “worldwide gender revolution” • In both rich & poor countries, fewer families can rely solely on a male breadwinner • In the U.S., the earning power of most men has declined since 1970, and many women have gone to work to make up the difference • So who will take care of the children, the sick, the elderly?

5. Female labor migration from Third World has received little attention • Many, though not all, of new female migrant workers are women of color • Work tends to be private & “indoors,” even illegal & hidden (e.g., sex work) • Affluent career women want to be seen as “doing it all,” and therefore discount & disguise paid “help”

6. First World lifestyles are made possible by a global transfer of “women’s work” from poor to rich countries • In earlier phase of imperialism, northern states extracted natural resources agricultural products from colonized lands • Today, wealthy countries also seek to extract something harder to measure and quantify, which can look very much like love

7. Precedents for the globalization of traditional female services • In ancient Middle East, women of vanquished populations were routinely enslaved, to serve as household workers and concubines for victors • Among the Africans brought to N America as slaves in the 16th – 19th centuries, 1/3 were women & children, and many became concubines and domestic servants • 19th century Irishwomen and rural Englishwomen migrated to English towns & cities to work as domestics in homes of growing upper-middle class

8. The feminization of migration • 1950 – 1970, men predominated in labor migration to northern Europe from Turkey, Greece, and North Africa • Since then, women have been replacing men • In 1946, women were fewer than 3% of the Algerians and Moroccans living in France; by 1990, they were more than 40% • Now, half of world’s 120 million legal & illegal migrants are believed to be women • Women migrants from many sending countries actually outnumber men, sometimes by a wide margin (See pp. 533-534)

9. US household workforce has changed w/ life chances of different ethnic groups • In late 19th century, Irish and German immigrants served the northern upper & middle classes, then left for factories as soon as they could • Black women replaced them, accounting for 60% of all domestics in the late 1940s, and dominated the field until other occupations opened up • West coast maids were disproportionately Japanese American until that group found better options • Today, ethnicity of workforce varies by region: Chicanas in the Southwest, Caribbeans in New York, native Hawaiians in Hawaii, whites, mostly rural, in Maine (Ehreneich, “Maid to Order: The Politics of Other Women’s Work” Harper's, 4/1/2000)

10. Govt’s of some sending countries actively encourage women to migrate • Migrant women are more likely than male counterparts to send hard-earned wages back home to families • Generally, they send anywhere from half to nearly all of what they earn • These remittances have significant impact on lives of families and kin, as well as on cash-strapped Third World gov’ts

11. “Care deficit”pulls migrants from Third World and postcommunist countries; poverty pushes them • Throughout western Europe, Taiwan, Japan, and esp. in US, women’s employment has increased dramatically since the 1970s • As rich countries have grown richer, poor countries have become poorer – in absolute & relative terms • Global inequalities in wages are particularly striking • To qualify for loans, IMF/WB structural adjustment programs demand poor countries devalue their currencies and cut public spending • Increasing incentives for migration to more fortunate parts of the world

12. GL of women’s work is NOT a simple synergy of needs among women • Fails to account for failure of First World gov’ts to meet needs created by women’s entry into workforce • Any view of globalization of domestic work as simply an arrangement among women omits the role of men

13. Push factors not so simple either • Absolute poverty not a push factor • Female migrants not the most impoverished • They are typically more affluent and better educated than male migrants • Such women are likely to be enterprising and adventurous enough to resist the social pressures to stay home and accept their lot in life • Noneconomic factors also influential • To escape expectation to care for elderly family members, to give paychecks to husband or father, to defer to an abusive husband • A practical response to divorce or need to raise children as single mother • Other factors may make men of poor countries less desirable as husbands (e.g., unemployment and related social problems such as alcoholism and gambling)

14. GL of child care & housework brings independent women of world together –but not as sisters & allies with common goals • Instead they come together across a great divide of privilege and opportunity

15. Global relationship of women mirrors traditional relationship b/w sexes • The First World takes on a role like that of the old-fashioned male in the family • Poor countries take on a role like that of the traditional woman within the family • A division of labor feminists critiqued when it was “local” has now, metaphorically speaking, gone global