Migrant filipino domestic workers in Pakistan; Agency, rights and the limits of the law

Domestic work, the provision of caring work in the intimate, domestic sphere, is work that continues to be undertaken primarily by women and increasingly by migrant women. The expected reduction in demand for paid domestic workers has not materialised, leading some to ask whether the emergence of ‘global care chains’ should be assessed as a major defeat for feminist movements or as ‘unnished business’. Combined with the movement of women into paid employment, the retreat from welfare state supports in Western Europe has produced care economies that are increasingly reliant on the outsourcing of intimate, reproductive labour. A range of factors has contributed to the demand for paid domestic labour, including population ageing, changing household structures, increasing female participation in the labour market, difculties in reconciling paid employment and caring for dependants, and the availability of a exible, low-cost, female (and mainly migrant) work force.