READING
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
THE CARE ECONOMY
– international migration of women from developing countries
A Every day, women from underdeveloped countries like India, Mexico and the Philippines pack their bags and leave their homes, families and communities in order to take up new positions as care workers in wealthier parts of the world. Whether these women find work in nurseries, day-care centres, homes or hospitals, looking after children, the elderly, the ill or disabled, they all have one thing in common – they are part of what many researchers now call the “care economy”.
B The care economy is not a new phenomenon but it has burgeoned on a global scale in the last twenty years. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of international migrants increased by 14 percent with a growing proportion of these women now travelling independently for their own employment and not as dependants of their husbands. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has called this growth in women's trans-national labour migration “one of the most striking economic and social phenomena of recent times”.
C This development can be seen as a result of two factors. The first is a multitude of demographic changes in wealthier countries since World War II. Middle-class women have entered the labour force en masse and workers have been logging more and more hours at the office every week. In addition, people in these countries are now living
longer and reproducing at a slower rate, meaning populations across the developed world are steadily aging. All of these changes have resulted in a larger demand for care services at a time when the working population is too besieged with other commitments to provide this care on a voluntary basis.
D In developing countries, the story is very different. Many societies have youthful populations in the prime of their working lives, but suffer from low wages and high unemployment, and women are often the last in line to get work. Even when good jobs are available, they often cannot compete with the salaries offered in developed countries. A
fully trained and qualified nurse may earn less working at a hospital in the Philippines, for example, than she would as a domestic carer for a family in Los Angeles.
E It is easy to see why the care economy has developed at such a pace – it provides job opportunities for large numbers of unemployed women in developing countries, and affordable care for stressed, busy families in the developed world. But does everybody benefit from the globalisation of care?
F For women in developed countries, more are now free to pursue higher education and better careers, having found that passing care responsibilities on to a third party allows them to dedicate as much of their time and energy to their careers as men do, and in many cases break through the “glass ceiling” that held them back in the workplace.
G For the migrant workers and their families, there are also many benefits. Care workers can enjoy new levels of independence and earn better incomes than they could at home. Money sent home from abroad can account for 10-20 percent of some poorer countries' GDPs, and many studies demonstrate how migrant workers' payments have alleviated poverty. In Morocco, for example, it is estimated that 1.2 million people have been lifted out of poverty because of these payments, and much of this money is coming from the care economy.
H But there are many downsides to this process. Migrant domestic workers can experience guilt, isolation, and anxiety, and the long periods away from home can hurt the emotional welfare of their families. In the Philippines, one study found that children left behind when their mothers emigrate tend to have more behavioural problems,
and perform lower in class ranks and grades than their peers. Emigration can also drain developing countries' workforces of skilled labour and encourage young people to focus less on education and their local livelihoods in the hopes of finding better jobs abroad.
I The gain in care that developed countries experience often comes at a price that is not immediately visible when we look only at the affluent suburbs of cities like Hong Kong, London or New York where these women are employed. This price is the loss of social support that families and communities in the developing countries experience when women migrate in order to provide more support financially.
