Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

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are also inaccurate, which widens yet further the gap between the “real” and “recorded” amounts of
remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean (Santillán and Ulfe, 2006). Although there are no precise
estimates for the contribution made by women to their countries’ economies by way of remittances, research
by the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW, 2006) has
shown that 60% of Latin American women migrants work as domestic staff in the destination countries.
Some 44% of the 9.9 million Mexicans resident in the United States are women, and 68% of these are
employed as domestic workers, nannies and carers for the elderly, while the remainder work in other
occupations. In 2004, the annual earnings of Mexican women migrating to the United States were 30%
lower than men’s, but they sent back 61% of all the remittances received in the country.
Box II.8
PERUVIAN WOMEN LOOKING AFTER CHILEAN HOUSEHOLDS: A CHALLENGE FOR
EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR
Paid care work in Latin American households is changing. The case of Chile shows that, even as demand for care
services in the home is driven upward by women’s rising labour market participation, the supply of these services is
shifting as it comes to depend heavily on the labour of migrant women, most of them from Peru. This change is not
only compromising the achievements of Chilean domestic workers in winning and exercising employment rights,
but is also raising questions about a fairer division of care work.
Staab and Maher (2006) show that increased migration by Peruvian women and their employment in
Chilean households partly reflect changes in the dynamic of the labour market for domestic services, following an
increase in the bargaining power of Chilean “nanas”, as domestic employees are known. This is partly because a
massive influx of middle-class women into the labour market has combined with a relative scarcity of care options
outside the home to increase the demand for home-based care services, and partly because Chilean employment
legislation has been amended over the last decade to give greater protection to the employment rights of female
domestic staff. At the same time, the women who have traditionally undertaken paid domestic work have been
enforcing these rights with greater security and confidence. But alongside this group of domestic workers another
has emerged, one that is less empowered and more willing to accept difficult or even abusive conditions for the sake
of improving the situation of relatives in their home countries. In the absence of alternatives, resources or support
networks, these women put up with violations of their rights. In some instances, the migration legislation itself
provides an incentive for this behaviour. a
It is vital to safeguard and enforce the rights of both Chilean and migrant workers, in order to avoid
creating a group of second-class carers (Maher and Staab, 2005). The challenge does not end there, however. The
fact that women are migrating to care for other people’s families raises fundamental issues for a pro-women’s rights
agenda. First, migration allows a group of privileged women to delegate household tasks and take up more highly
paid jobs with better working conditions (Staab, 2003). Second, it has far-reaching consequences for migrants’ own
family groups. Migrant female workers are often unaware of their employment rights. A qualitative study from 2002
showed that many Peruvian women in Chile had children in Peru who were looked after in most cases by other
women (grandmothers, aunts, sisters and so on) and supported by their remittances. In these “transnational care
chains” (Salazar Parreñas, 2001), two major actors are conspicuous by their absence: the State and men. What we
see is the transfer of care work from one group of women to another.
Source: R. Salazar Parreñas, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work, Stanford University Press,
2001; K. Maher and S. Staab, “Nanny politics: the dilemma of working women’s empowerment in Santiago, Chile”,
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2005; S. Staab and K. Maher, “The dual discourse about Peruvian domestic
workers in Santiago de Chile: class, race, and a nationalist project”, Latin American Journal of Politics and Society,
vol. 48, No. 1, 2006; S. Staab, “En búsqueda de trabajo. Migración internacional de las mujeres latinoamericanas y
caribeñas”, Mujer y desarrollo series, No. 51 (LC/L.2028-P/E), Santiago, Chile, Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 2003.
a
In Chile, the type of visa given to unskilled female workers is subject to contract and expires when the contract is terminated.
After holding this type of visa for two years uninterruptedly, foreigners resident in Chile may apply for permanent residence.
However, a woman employed in a private residence who resigns in order to change employer runs the risk of being left
without a visa until she can obtain a new employment contract and regularize her situation. There is therefore some incentive
to stay with the same employer for the full two years regardless of working conditions or the treatment received, in order to
qualify for permanent residence.