Reflections on Globalized Care Chains and Migrant Women Workers

An analysis of the international division of reproductive labor is incomplete without acknowledging the proliferation of state regulations in migrant-receiving countries, which result in restricting workers’ ability to maintain their own families and to exercise their full range of labor rights. An overview of trends in nations fueling the need for domestic workers and caregivers includes the social conditions for migrants increasingly fill this niche. The transnational circuits of care migration are constructed by the commercial and legal processes used to recruit and transport domestic workers. These are highlighted by analyzing the policies in the USA and United Arab Emirates to demonstrate the restrictions countries place on migrants seeking employment and the limited labor protections offered migrant domestic workers. Two otherwise different countries have adopted similar entry requirements tying migrant domestic workers to employer sponsored jobs in their homes. However, the USA offers fewer visa options to domestic workers and recruitment systems differ. Vulnerabilities faced by migrant domestics receiving visas are linked to these immigration policies.