MAID INTO WHO WE ARE: THE EFFECTS OF GROWING UP WITH A FOREIGN DOMESTIC WORKER AT HOME73

Abstract

Singapore had established itself as one of the top economies in Asia by the 1990s. Goh Chok Tong became the Prime Minister succeeding Lee Kuan Yew, signifying a time of growth and development. An increasingly better educated and affluent population was emerging. Growing individualism and demand for greater political liberties led to increasingly liberal views adopted by the state (Leong, 2000). A changing political landscape, shift in values, development of education and globalization on an international scale – this is the exciting times in which children born in the 90s grew up in. The 1990s were a time where the government strongly encouraged women to work. Singapore’s female labour force participation rate had been consistently rising since and while the entirety of these increases cannot be attributed to the foreign domestic worker industry, it could not have been achieved without it. This altered the domestic sphere. To accommodate the need for domestic labour, the number of foreign domestic workers increased significantly. By 1989, there were 50,000 domestic workers. This means a sizeable proportion of children born in the 1990s were cared for by foreign domestic workers. With foreign domestic workers involved in childcare, many concerns arose about how this generation would be affected. Anxieties revolved around children becoming overly dependent and spoiled as well as the relationships that these domestic workers would develop with the children, especially in relation to the parents. This paper would study how growing up with foreign domestic workers has impacted children in the 90s in the Singapore context.