Chris Blattman

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Migrant worker bleg (Dubai edition)

Some of you may remember my randomized control trial of factory labor in Ethiopia. It is still chugging away.

One interesting finding so far: almost one in six people in our sample migrate to Dubai or another Middle Eastern country to become domestic workers. One in six!

these are principally women, and principally domestic workers, by the way.

We’re interested in learning more about working conditions and wages — both average levels, distributions, etc. Anyone familiar with studies or reports or data on the matter?

13 Responses

  1. Landed on this blog a bit late. When I used to work at the International Organization for Migration we did a study on socio-economic outcomes of migration from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. Sample is pretty big and it allows some quantification of returns to migration http://bit.ly/YkjjEf

  2. Ever since the ILO adopted the Domestic Workers Convention in 2011, they (and other international organizations) have been itching for data on the matter. To this end the ILO produced a number of Policy Briefs (based on official data, so no data on undeclared work) with information on wages, working hours, and global and regional estimates of domestic workers (http://www.ilo.org/travail/info/WCMS_155773/lang–en/index.htm). No data specifically on migrant domestic workers though.

    I am currently working on a research project examining migrant domestic workers in Europe, and we are also looking for appropriate methodologies to count and measure working conditions of migrant domestic workers (that could also be applied outside of Europe). I’ll let you know when the verdict is in.

  3. Human Rights Watch published world report in 2011 (I think?) on domestic workers’ condition in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

    Indonesia (my country) sent the most domestic workers to Middle East, with numerous reports and data available, unfortunately only in Bahasa Indonesia — I could help should needed.

    Thanks for interesting blog, btw.

  4. Hi Chris,

    When I was working in Sri Lanka, I know that Save the Children released a study on Sri Lanka maid workers in the Middle East. Unfortunately, I do not know how where to find it. Good luck!

    By the way, great website

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