In 2008, there were over 180,000 domestic workers in Singapore. The largest numbers came from the Philippines and Indonesia.
In this report, Transient Workers Count Too presents the results of a survey that focuses on two main stages of the processes that Indonesian women who decide to become domestic workers go through. They are stages that occur within their home country: recruitment and return, in the latter case, with specific reference to Terminal 3 at Jakarta’s Sukarno-Hatta International Airport. The survey begins with general questions to provide a picture of our contributors, and concludes with a section that concentrates on the financial costs and benefits of coming to work in Singapore.
One of its most striking findings was that the cost of placement to workers had risen from around three months of their pay in 1997 to eight or nine months in 2008.
Download the pdf version of the paper (32 pages) 