IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/chinec/v51y2018i2p154-174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan: Should Minimum Wage Apply to Foreign Domestic Workers?

Author

Listed:
  • Chieh-Hsuan Wang
  • Chien-Ping Chung
  • Jen-Te Hwang
  • Chia-yang Ning

Abstract

With the number of foreign domestic workers increasing in different countries around the world, governments have also begun to pay attention to issues related to the rights of foreign domestic workers. This article presents a comparison and analysis of foreign domestic workers employment policies, working conditions, and minimum wage in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. We found foreign domestic workers in Asian countries lack access to regular forms of migration and safe migration channels; low wages; long working hours; exploitative working conditions; nonrecognition of domestic work under labor laws, and mistreatment in domestic work conditions. In addition, this article investigates from social welfare, economic, and legal perspectives, the feasibility of applying minimum wage to foreign domestic workers. The results show that foreign domestic workers’ wages should not be decoupled from the minimum wage, and foreign domestic workers should not be treated as a separate group of workers in minimum wage policy. Long-term care systems should incorporate the foreign domestic worker labor pool, which could provide the additional personnel necessary for the nation’s long-term care.

Suggested Citation

  • Chieh-Hsuan Wang & Chien-Ping Chung & Jen-Te Hwang & Chia-yang Ning, 2018. "The Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan: Should Minimum Wage Apply to Foreign Domestic Workers?," Chinese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 154-174, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:mes:chinec:v:51:y:2018:i:2:p:154-174
    DOI: 10.1080/10971475.2018.1447831
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10971475.2018.1447831
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10971475.2018.1447831?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chan, Chi Shing & Kwan, Fung & Lei, Ka Chon, 2022. "Wage differentials between local and foreign workers in Macao: Discrimination?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Aye Myat Thi & Cathy Zimmerman & Nicola S. Pocock & Clara W. Chan & Meghna Ranganathan, 2021. "Child Domestic Work, Violence, and Health Outcomes: A Rapid Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-33, December.
    3. Park, Jiyoung & Park, Chongwon & Kim, Eun Kyung & Lee, Jinah & Kang, Yoojeong & Choi, Young Jun, 2020. "Why do they depend on the private sector of childcare in South Korea?: Perspectives of the selected working mothers," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mes:chinec:v:51:y:2018:i:2:p:154-174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/MCES20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.