1. Policies on and Experiences of Foreign Domestic Workers in Canada
- Author
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Katherine Nichol and Ping-Chun Hsiung
- Subjects
Intersectionality ,Economic growth ,media_common.quotation_subject ,General Social Sciences ,Public policy ,Race (biology) ,Scholarship ,Labour supply ,Narrative ,Sociology ,Social science ,Composition (language) ,Citizenship ,media_common - Abstract
This paper reviews studies of government policies on, and the experiences of, foreign domestic workers in Canada. It provides an overview of changes in Canadian policies regulating foreign domestic workers and in their demographic composition in Canada over recent decades. It identifies three analytical themes in studies about their experiences such as: (1) conceptualizing citizenship in policy-making as contested; (2) documenting the inherently exploitative nature of the programme; and (3) examining the intersectionality of class, race, and gender. The review is guided by feminist scholarship on reproductive labour in the household. It identifies unaddressed issues and proposes future directions for studies of foreign domestic workers in Canada. Over the past century, government policy on foreign domestic workers (FDWs) has undergone several major changes as FDWs enter into Canada as temporary workers to meet continuing demands of carework in the domestic sphere. Changes in policy regulating FDWs and in the national origin of FDWs are driven by domestic demand and international labour supply on one hand and dictated by Canada’s efforts at nation-building on the other. This paper reviews key studies that have examined government policies on, and the experiences of, FDWs in Canada. Based upon comprehensive reports on policies, NGOs and FDWs in Canada, (Boyd 2004; Spitzer and Torres 2008), it begins by providing an overview of changes in the Canadian policies regulating FDWs and in the demographic composition of FDWs over recent decades. This is followed by a review of studies about FDWs’ experiences, drawing on social sciences, with an emphasis on sociology. Specifically, we identified three recent analytical themes such as: (a) conceptualizing citizenship in policy-making as contested; (b) documenting the inherently exploitative nature of the programme; and (c) examining the intersectionality of class, race, and gender in the case of FDWs. Our review is guided by the wealth of feminist scholarship on reproductive labour in the household. Based on workers’ narratives and researchers’ comments and observations, we identify unaddressed issues and propose future directions for studies of FDWs in Canada.
- Published
- 2010
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