Mother
Mami
Ina
Mutter
Okaasan
Ammee
We all have different words for the one that cares for us. Motherhood and mothering don’t have to be biological. It's the process of caring for someone else. It is wiping a runny nose. It is being a shoulder to cry on. It is the bread and butter of the people that compose our tomorrow. Mother, Mami, Ina, Mutter, Okaasan, Ammee are the foundations of our economies.
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The current conversation around the globalization of care work and migration trends which follow neoliberal welfare regimes with privatized care work infrastructures is one that is complex and multidimensional. Provided the complexity of this issue, we must look at how the privatization of care work currently operates at a detriment to women globally in order to promote economic reconciliation policies that push against the commodification of motherhood.
The globalization of care work is fully dependent on the need for care work in the global north and the effect care work has on the families and economies in the global south. Research indicates that more public forms of care work are beneficial economically, and socially for racial and class-based diversity within families, but the question remains of how more public forms of care work would impact immigrants providing care to many of the families within the global north. This research aims to demonstrate a comprehensive view of a global world shifting to more public forms of care services.
Neoliberalism & The Trickle-Down Effect of Motherhood
A Pilipino woman by the name of Dorotea Godinez kisses her husband and three young girl’s goodbye as she boarded a plane to Singapore to work as a live-in nanny for a family.
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Three-tier care work which is promoted through neoliberal policies is central to the conversation surrounding global care services. The term “three-tier care work” refers to the trickle-down effect of mothering that occurs as more highly resourced women enter the workforce and need domestic care workers to take care of their children. This process creates the need for domestic care workers to find other means of care for their own children, which often means passing on the care of their families “to their own relatives or sometimes even poorer women who they hire as their own domestic workers” (Braithwaite 269). In this way mothering is passed down a line ranging from very highly resourced women all the way to less resourced women. This trickle-down effect of motherhood has intensified as more women in the global north have begun joining the workforce.
As more women in rich countries join the workforce the need for care workers also intensifies. For example, in the U.S. in 2013, “13.5 million children under the age of six [received] care from someone other than their parent on a weekly basis” (Shdaimah). Due to the fact that many governments have inadequate forms of welfare support for working families, childcare becomes a commodity that families have to seek out through dependence on immigrant care workers.
Central to the privatization of care work are neoliberal policies. Neoliberal policies argue that “labor market deregulation and the retrenchment of social welfare programs will lead to economic growth” (Misra 318). The primary idea in neoliberalism is that minimal state interference allows for more functional markets and therefore a reduction in social welfare spending. In this way, the global employment of neoliberal welfare policies directly perpetuates the three-tier hierarchy of mothering as it enforces the privatization of care needs and care work. Neoliberal welfare policies promote privatized care, and immigrant women of the global south fill the needs of this privatized care creating a three-tier hierarchy of mothering.
The Economic Benefit of Public Forms of Care Work
A working mother was a Spanish teacher at a high school before her oldest son was born. She would drop her son off at the daycare center right down the hall from her classroom and she could be confident her baby was safe and well cared for. She had the luxury as a working mother to have a form of public care offered to her as a teacher, but this is not the case for all.
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As childcare for families has become more and more central to the function of economies, reconciliation policies that encourage more public forms of care are essential in bridging the gap between the promises of neoliberal welfare and the harsh realities of families. According to the work of Lourdes Beneria, an economist and professor at Cornell University, three models can be used to classify various policies that currently exist in relation to care provisions. These models have a significant impact on the economies they operate within.
In one model, the market is protected above all with very little public policy provided for families therefore heightening the need for families to seek out privatized care. This is highly problematic as it leaves huge economic disparities between families that can afford-high quality care and those that cannot. This model is representative of the current model that exist within the United States that reflects neoliberal policies, in which “nearly half of all workers do not have paid sick days” and hence “health needs can mean missing work and pay or even being fired” which disproportionally affects the care abilities of low-income families (Lourdes 1517).
In a second model, governments take a larger role in providing care at multiple socioeconomic levels. This model, shifting away from neoliberalist policies, is representative of many European countries with the perspective that public care policies are a way to promote employment by allowing more mothers to be a part of the workforce therefore increasing productivity (Lourdes 1517).
In a third model, care provisions come in both public and private forms similar to that of France. In France specifically they provide subsidies and tax breaks to support working families; yet because this provision mixes both public and private forms of care, inequalities between families that can and cannot afford care prevails. Additionally, although this model often encourages part-time employment for women, part-time employment often leaves little ability for career advancement and therefore is seen as discriminatory.
These three models provide a platform from which countries running into the issue of care crises can begin to implement new reconciliation policies that will benefit changing economies. Public care policies often provide the best results for shifting labor markets. For example, South Korea experienced an increase in the women's labor force in the 1990s and therefore a care crisis which produced a necessary shift to more public forms of care in order to best serve its economy (Lourdes 1519).
In the U.S. Nobel Peace Prize winning economist, James Heckman conducted research revealing that providing high quality public preschool “for 3- and 4-year-olds can more than pay for itself over the long term, as low-income children who attend are more likely to live productive lives” (Brown). Providing public forms of care have meaningful effects specially on low-income children from infancy to age 5 as Heckman found that such children,
are more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to be incarcerated than their
counterparts who stayed home or enrolled in low-quality programs, had higher IQs and
were healthier during the course of their lives. (Brown)
Additionally, Heckman found that the rate of return on investing in such programs is 13 percent per year (Brown).
This research clearly reveals that with increasingly transforming societies where women are joining the labor force at much higher rates reconciliation policies in response to the commodification of care work is necessary and beneficial from an economic perspective.
The Social Benefit of Public Care Work
A family sits in their living room smiling down at a gurgling, fat, smiling baby. Work starts in a few months and both parents understand that that means losing precious time with their child. They want to be sure to have the same level of care that they would provide if they didn’t have to go to work. The question of who will care for their baby when they can’t permeates as an internal family matter rattling through the walls of their home.
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Some might argue that more public forms of care provisions work to the detriment of highly resourced women, but such arguments are based on assumptions that do not take into account the ethical implications of private care work.
Oftentimes in upper-class and upper-middle class families there exists two-career households. Within two-career households both parents are often employed in deeply demanding and time-consuming jobs that can often be unpredictable and therefore contingent upon the help of a domestic care worker. The relationship that is created between a domestic care worker and the family/employer is one that is especially unique from other market transactions involving services, because care work is personal. Nannies or domestic care workers become a part of the home and often spend more time with the children than the working parents themselves. Questions of when and how to discipline or teach children become a source of rigid control that employers have over the caretaker, not to mention cultural teachings that the caretaker might have that deviate from household traditions.
Within the U.S., “the average domestic is paid a woefully low wage” according to the research of Hondagneu-Sotelo on domestic workers in Los Angeles, “job offers of $150 per week for a live-in worker are not unusual in Los Angeles” (Tronto 38). To put this in context, live-in domestic workers “earn less than minimum wage and work an average of sixty-four hours a week” (Tronto 38). For live out nannies the average was “$5.90 an hour for approximately forty to forty-five hours each week” (Tronto 38). What's worse, unlike other forms of employment where workers might be able to strike back by perhaps pulling back on working responsibilities, care workers who “strike back” would be forced to employ that to the deficit of those they care for, often children. In this way the nature of domestic care work is one that can be easily prone to abuse and vulnerability.
Ideologies of intensive and competitive mothering are also central to the idea behind why high- and middle-income families believe private care is necessary. In the United States high-quality care is a commodity. In other words, “there is no guarantee that relatives and informal at-home daycare providers will provide a sufficiently enriching environment for children '' (Tronto 43). This lack of high-quality care heightens anxiety as it relates to “intensive and competitive mothering”. There is no question that the college process and job market are becoming increasingly competitive, therefore the needs of children and the proper resources for them become of utmost importance.
The realities of care work within two-career households are that the access and opportunity in the labor force being afforded to high- and middle-class women comes at the detriment to low-income families. It is not fair to say that all women should not work and solely operate as care providers for their children, as that works in direct opposition to all the progress that has been made today. Children in society can no longer be seen as “a good assigned to individual parents” but rather a “collective good in our society” (Tronto 48). High- and middle-income families can work against further social and economic inequality, and it begins with implementing high quality care that is offered to all families.
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In Kanye Wests song “Hey Mamma” he describes the relationship he had with his mother:
“You fixed me up somethin' that was good for my soul
Famous homemade chicken soup, can I have another bowl?
You work late nights just to keep on the lights
Mommy got me training wheels so I could keep on my bike
And you would give me anything in this world...
As we knelt on the kitchen floor
I said Mommy I'm a love you, so you don't hurt no more
And when I'm older, you ain't gotta work no more
And I'm a get you that mansion that we couldn't afford”
This represents that for some mothers working vs childcare is never an either or but rather a constant balancing act, unchanged by the increased role of higher-classed women in the labor market.
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There is an assumption in this conversation surrounding the trickle-down effect of mothering that this conversation only applies to highly resourced women in the global north. This assumption ignores lower-resourced women for whom working is not a choice. In the U.S. the challenge for daycare has always been persistent for working class mothers. Erika Washington, a mother from Detroit described how she had managed finding care takers for her children while she was at work whether it was relying on a co-worker or bouncing from daycare to daycare in order to find the quality care that her three children deserved. The privatized system of childcare that exists in the U.S. perpetuates inequality and serves as a major challenge for working class, black and brown families, and immigrant women. In the U.S. “affluent families pay the lion’s share of all childcare dollars spent in this country” the result is that these families “received the highest-quality childcare, and their children reap the most cognitive and social benefits” leaving lower income families in the “absence of quality, affordable care” (Branigin).
Additionally, although some private sector employers are providing more extensive childcare services this practice still perpetuates childcare “as a personal rather than collective responsibility” (Branigin). This works to the detriment of low income and working families. In America, “while more and more women have become their household’s primary breadwinner, black women and latinas are more likely than white women to fill this role” with “70.7 percent of black mothers being the sole breadwinner for their family” according to a study in 2016 (Branigin). Capping the cost of daycare for low-income families, centering the working class, paid family and medical leave, and universal preschool and daycares are reconciliation policies that benefit the working class, and brown and black women within the labor force.
Advocating for domestic childcare service protections through minimum wage laws, providing publicly supported childcare facilities, and reframing current ideologies around care work so that everyone can be provided adequate care without exploitation occurring, is central and beneficial to all families.
Public Care Work & Effects on Care Workers
Because Mamma you are there, and I am here
Because Mamma I know you meant for abuelita to take care of me
But I take care of abuelita
Because Mamma the money you send back is good
but I can’t remember the curve of your smile in my memory
Because Mamma you are there, and I am here
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Although we have addressed the benefits of more public forms of care for countries on the receiving end, we have yet to dive into the effects on immigrant care workers coming from countries facing challenging economic times.
Firstly, the challenges for children of immigrant care workers who remain in their country of origin as a result of broken economies are devastating. The physical aspect of not being able to be present with one's children, can not only be devastating for mothers but also for their children. We can see this in the testimonial of Ellen Seneriches who lives in the Philippines and is the daughter of a domestic worker in New York,
There are times when you want to talk to her, but she is not there. That is really hard,
very difficult...There are times when I want to call her, speak to her, cry to her, and I
cannot. It is difficult. The only thing that I can do is write to her. And I cannot cry
through the emails and sometimes I just want to cry on her shoulders. (Braithwaite 271)
Shifting away from neoliberal policies in the global north may allow for the care needs of all households to be met, by allowing economies in the global south to restructure themselves so that migration doesn’t become as necessary. Joan Tronto, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, argues that “with demographic transitions and the separation of families due to internal and international migration in the South, the size of extended family networks has also been shrinking, and the survival strategies of the poor have been weakened” (Beneria 1514). Uniting the migrant care worker with their families might be a potential benefit of more public forms of care.
On the other hand, there is no question that remittances that migrant workers send back to their families have become a huge part of struggling economies in the global south, “remittances -mostly from migrant care workers - to the Philippines totaled almost $7 billion in 1999 and generated more foreign currency than manufactured exports including garments and electronics” (Braithwaite 270). Surprisingly though, according to a study in 2015
The largest numbers of immigrant women workers (882,663) were maids and
housekeepers in 2015. Approximately 501,740 were nursing, psychiatric, and home
health aides; followed by cashiers (480,391); registered nurses (454,057); and janitors
and building cleaners (364,494). (American Immigration Council)
This indicates that the primary sectors that immigrant women are in, are not within childcare work so therefore it is possible that more public forms of care work wouldn’t work at a complete detriment to immigrant women.
Finally, a case study specific to Mexico conducted by Karol Vasquez in the The American Journal of Economics and Sociology provides some insight as to how women could play a critical role in communities in the global south if care work shifted to a more public platform. Vasquez clearly articulates the trajectory of Mexico from an advanced middle-income country to the high levels of unemployment, crime, and poverty which it transformed into in 2005. In 2005 as a result of high rates of unemployment migration also became a huge part of Mexico's economy as in “2006 remittances sent to Mexico totaled $22 billion, an increase of 125 percent since 2002” (Vasquez 684).
Mexican immigration has subsequently increased primarily for migrant men but also for migrant women. As a result of this tendency, Vasquez provides insight into those who stay behind (often women) and the roles they play in their communities and the Mexican economy. Vasquez argues that women in rural migrant communities in Mexico will serve and have been serving as the primary solution to a new form of development in a country suffering from the damages of financial capitalism.
Vasquez attributes the downfall of Mexico's economy in large part to Westernized economic practices explaining that the country “has lost policy space, monetary sovereignty, and the ability to provide full employment” so therefore it is necessary to “regain such power through the reinstatement of Big Government and the replacement of money manager for a paternalistic capitalism” (Vasquez 690). In other words, “the neoliberal project is no longer sustainable on both sides of the Rio Bravo; consequently, it must be abandoned” (Vasquez 690). This provides a perspective that a shift away from neoliberal policies within the global north may also benefit economies in the global south.
Conclusion
Mothering and motherhood is a fundamental component which drives the way in which our economies and welfare systems operate within a changing global community. Currently, under neoliberal welfare regimes motherhood is a commodity but it shouldn’t have to be. Children should not have to suffer from low-quality care because our welfare systems fail to support working mothers. We do not have to live in a world where our failure to make systems fit families creates a trickle-down effect of motherhood that leaves the children of the rich raised and the children of those who raise other people’s children alone and neglected. It is in our best interest economically and socially to start engaging in dialogue about more public forms of care work and how this shift could affect families in the global north and the global south, immigrants, and citizens. Our world is deeply interconnected, and motherhood is the heartbeat that connects all of us.
Tina
Madre
Maju
Makuahine
Mana
Meme
Mama
Works Cited
Beneria, Lourdes. “Globalization, Women’s Work, and Care Needs: The Urgency of Reconciliation Policies.” North Carolina Law Review, vol. 88, no. 5, June 2010, pp. 1501–26.
Braithwaite, Ann, et al. “Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies: Introductory Concepts.” The Globalization of Care Work, First Edition, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.
Branigin, Anne. “The Future of Child Care: How to Create a Fairer, More Equitable System for Working Women and Women of Color.” The Root, https://www.theroot.com/the-future-of-child-care-how-to-create-a-fairer-more-1824129090. Accessed 8 Apr. 2020.
Brown, Emma. “A Nobel Prize Winner Says Public Preschool Programs Should Start at Birth.” Washington Post, 12 Dec. 2016. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-nobel-prize-winner-says-public-preschool-programs-should-start-at-birth/2016/12/11/2576a1ee-be91-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html.
---. “A Nobel Prize Winner Says Public Preschool Programs Should Start at Birth.” Washington Post, 12 Dec. 2016. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/a-nobel-prize-winner-says-public-preschool-programs-should-start-at-birth/2016/12/11/2576a1ee-be91-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html.
Hess, Cynthia, and Ariane Hegewisch . “The Future of Care Work: Improving the Quality of America’s Fastest-Growing Jobs.” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 23 Sept. 2019, https://iwpr.org/publications/future-care-work-jobs/.
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Press, Stanford University. Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work, Second Edition | Rhacel Salazar Parreñas. http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21323. Accessed 3 Apr. 2020.
Shdaimah, Corey, et al. “Voices of Child Care Providers: An Exploratory Study on the Impact of Policy Changes.” International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy, vol. 12, no. 1, Feb. 2018, p. 4. BioMed Central, doi:10.1186/s40723-018-0043-4.
“The Future of Care Work: Improving the Quality of America’s Fastest-Growing Jobs.” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, https://iwpr.org/publications/future-care-work-jobs/. Accessed 8 Apr. 2020.
“The Impact of Immigrant Women on America’s Labor Force.” American Immigration Council, 8 Mar. 2017, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/impact-immigrant-women-americas-labor-force.
Tronto, Joan C. “The ‘Nanny’ Question in Feminism.” Hypatia, vol. 17, no. 2, 2002, pp. 34–51. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2002.tb00764.x.
Vasquez, Karol Gil. “A Pluralist Alternative: Mexican Women, Migration, and Regional Development: A Pluralist Alternative.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 70, no. 3, July 2011, pp. 671–98. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.2011.00788.x.