When Cultures Collide

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.

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.

As of 2018, according to the Taiwanese Ministry of Labour, approximately 190,000 Indonesian migrant workers were employed as caregivers or domestic helpers in Taiwan, making up 76 per cent of all domestic workers in Taiwan. As evidenced by these statistics, the Indonesian caregivers have become an integral part of Taiwanese society.

The average age of the Indonesian domestic worker is around 25, however some are much younger. Many of the labourers come from poor families in rural areas. Attracted by the prospect of a job and higher salaries overseas, they apply to work as a domestic worker through a broker, usually recommended by a friend or a recruiter. After taking out a loan to pay the exuberant application fee — over half their yearly salary in Taiwan — they complete a three month training course in Mandarin and aged care, before being sent to Taiwan where the will live with their employer, at their beck and call 24/7.

Many have never travelled outside of Indonesia before and are making a turbulent transition from rural to urban life. 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.

So what motivates a young woman in her early 20s, the same age as many UTAS students graduating in the next few months, to take up this sort of employment?

According to Michelle Phillips, a multilingual former Fulbright Taiwan fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley who has conducted extensive research into the domestic labour “maid trade” system in both Taiwan and Hong Kong, the answer is simple – money.

“Money, money, money. That was the primary motivation in all the 100-plus interviews I had with domestic workers,” Michelle said.

“The money can be used for different things; a house, an education for their children, or medical care for their parents. The salary in Taiwan is high enough for the domestic workers to build a house over the course of five or six years.”

But it’s not just the fact that the salary, set at NT$17,000 per month, is higher; it’s the fact that they can obtain a job in the first place. “In Indonesia, there is no job for them or their husbands,” Michelle said.

“There is a significant gender imbalance in terms of the demands of market labour. You would normally think of migrant workers as factory workers or construction workers, but the demand now, internationally, really is for domestic work — and that is female labour. Even if the man wanted to go abroad, there are no jobs for him. The woman has to do it.”

Working abroad offers an irresistible opportunity for the young women to improve their family’s quality of life, and also provides a solution to Taiwan’s increasing demand for aged carers and domestic workers — seemingly a win-win situation.

However, domestic workers residing in their employer’s home are vulnerable to all forms of exploitation: labour abuse; physical, sexual, verbal, and psychological abuse. And when abuse does occur, it can be extremely difficult for the domestic workers to push for change.

Domestic work is not recognised as work in Taiwan, and therefore is not covered by the Labour Standards Law. Instead, their placement agency in Taiwan is the primary enforcer of their rights while in Taiwan. Under certain circumstances a migrant worker has the right to change the employer. However, in many cases the odds are against them — the agency is paid primarily by the Taiwanese employer, and as the domestic worker is employed entirely in the private sphere of the house they often lack witnesses to prosecute the case.

“In terms of abuse, sexual abuse and physical abuse are the exception,” said Michelle. “But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. More common are labour and verbal abuse.”

Working hours, breaks, and overtime payments are negotiated between the employer and worker. In this contract, the worker has very low bargaining power and is often reliant upon the goodwill of their employer. This leaves the workers vulnerable to exploitation.

In many of the interviews Michelle conducted during her research, Indonesian workers would recount how, either by showing contempt or outright refusal, employers would refuse to give them their legally mandated day off.

“Honestly, the attitude I get from employers when it comes to their day off is resentment. The mindset for a lot of them is ‘I have paid for this worker, therefore, I am getting a life,’” she said.

“In this contract, the worker has very low bargaining power and is often reliant upon the goodwill of their employer. This leaves the workers vulnerable to exploitation.”

“And that as a woman, the caring role is ‘natural’ and performed out of love so they should devote their entire selves to it, with or without pay.”

Employers will often scold their domestic worker, raising their voices and yelling when she doesn’t do things correctly.

Poor Mandarin language skills complicate communication between the employer and labourer, and many speak little-to-no Taiwanese. These miscommunications often prompt verbal abuse.

“In Indonesian culture, the polite thing to do is to be very passive and quiet. You do not express that kind of anger,” said Michelle.

“You also do not tell your employer when you do not understand their instructions. You bow, say ‘yes ma'am’ and try to guess.”

“I have paid for this worker, therefore, I am getting a life.”

The domestic worker will pick up Taiwanese, and achieve fluency in Mandarin, but this takes time — certainly requires longer than the three months training they have received. In the meantime, as the language and cultural barriers persist, the employer can become very frustrated, and the domestic worker very depressed — often leading to despair and hopelessness.

“The agencies are not giving the employers nearly enough training,” said Michelle. “This is sometimes because the agencies themselves are ignorant about how much training is required.”

“This isn’t just about a person managing a worker — you are managing another family member, someone who is living in your home, and that requires compromises on both sides.”

While the Taiwanese government does provide a curriculum designed to help employers adapt to having a domestic worker, very few people actually take it.

“The biggest thing I think the government could do in this area is to work with the agencies and the NGOs and provide funding for those NGOs to host training sessions to prevent problems happening in the first place,” said Michelle.

“They have no idea their domestic worker has paid so much or had to go through so much work to apply for the position in Taiwan, or has received so little Mandarin training,” said Michelle. “In fact they were told that their worker would be fluent — which is a matter of the agency lying to them.”

According to the National Development Council, Taiwan will become a “super-aged society” by 2026 — that is, at least 20 per cent of the population will be aged 65 or above. As the proportion of elderly continues to increase, so too will the demand for caregivers.

Despite the sacrifices and vulnerabilities associated with seeking employment as a domestic worker abroad, the higher salary and a chance to improve their family’s quality of life remains attractive to young Indonesian women. It is precisely this hope that leaves immigrant domestic labourers in Taiwan vulnerable to exploitation, until coordinated measures are put in place to protect them.

“They also need to find a way to incentivise or enforce the training. Perhaps they could require employers to obtain a certificate of attendance from two different sources, which makes it difficult to fake.”

Michelle has also found that when she acts as a cultural broker of sorts, using her multilingual skills and understanding of the domestic worker brokering system to explain to employers how their domestic worker interprets their actions and speech and vice versa, as well as how their workers are exploited by the agency and broker system, employers are very receptive.

Bethany Green is a foreign correspondent at Togatus and a current New Colombo Plan scholarship holder. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Australian Government.