When Cultures Collide: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Taiwan Featuring a Q&A with Michelle Phillips, Former Fulbright Taiwan Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley Bethany Green
“They have no money, no phone, no computer access, no local friends, very little Mandarin proficiency, a large debt, and the knowledge that they will be unable to visit their family for three years.” Lower birth rates and a rapidly ageing population are issues facing East Asian and Western countries alike. While in the West, it is relatively common for the elderly to live in a retirement home or assisted-living facility, in many Asian countries influenced by Confucian cultural values of ‘filial piety,’ including Taiwan, this is considered the height of disrespect. As a child, you are expected to provide for your parents in their old age as, keeping them in your home as their health deteriorates where they can be cared for by their family — primarily the wife.
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However, over the past few decades as women in Taiwan have increasingly pursued jobs outside of the home, they have looked for someone else to take on and fulfil that ‘wifely’ role. This is where the Philippines and Indonesia, among other less-developed Southeast Asian nations, saw an opportunity to enter the market and help meet the demand for increased social care, encouraging lowerskilled females to work abroad as temporary labour.
