singapore hotel: Importing nannies is not the right solution for Australia"s childcare crisis

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I can’t help but detect the stereotype of Asian women as powerless victims creeping in here. As it turns out, Australia already has a willing and able workforce of $5-an-hour-nannies in the form of au pairs. Yet nobody seems to bat an eyelid about this. A quick Google search shows that for $150-$250 per week, you can have your own live-in nanny who will help with childcare and some house duties.

It is clear that au pairs, like their Asian domestic worker counterparts, also fall into this murky world of migrant exploitation. However, precisely because au pairs are often of European background and on a working holiday visa, the idea that these women could be as equally exploited doesn’t seem as obvious to us. In fact, an article by Janie Chuang highlights that au pair exploitation can easily be swept under the carpet as this form of employment is considered part of a ”cultural exchange” rather than work that should be protected under labour laws.

Another concern for those opposing the idea of ”importing” nannies from southeast Asia is that these women would lack adequate workplace conditions and not have access to full citizenship. These forms of protections of course would be beneficial to migrant workers. However, as Martin Ruhs in his book The Price of Rights points out, migrants (including both skilled and unskilled workers) often make strategic decisions where they trade off certain rights in their host country in exchange for access to a job or better wages.

This is not to condone the often severe restrictions placed upon migrants, nor the commodification of domestic workers, but rather to point out that people don’t always migrate with their eyes shut. For example in Singapore, Indonesian domestic workers I have spoken to typically migrate knowing that for the first eight months or so they will receive only a small allowance of $10-20 per month while the rest of their salary is used to pay an agent’s fees.

If a scheme for foreign nannies was to be implemented in Australia, I think other issues beyond pay and citizenship rights would determine whether the work was exploitative or not. As usual, the devil is in the detail. As people like Harmer point out, the regulation of the live-in nanny industry would be a potential bureaucratic minefield. How, for example, could we ensure that someone’s employee wasn’t also asked to help out at Aunty Flo’s gift shop? However, as we have these debates about how to best fill the childcare gap in Australia, let’s not forget that women in the Asian region who migrate for work are a lot like you and me – making the best choices with what they’ve got. Some like Munia might just make a go of it.

Maria Platt is an anthropologist who lives and works in southeast Asia. Her work focuses on migration in the southeast Asian region, with a particular focus on Indonesian domestic workers. Twitter @MariaWPlatt

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