The right to leisure : how do Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong spend their free time?

Abstract

Domestic workers from the Philippines have continuously been the largest group of migrant workers amongst all foreign countries since first being permitted to stay in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Over these forty years, it has become a phenomenon seeing these Filipino women (and sometimes a small number of men) gather in different public space on Sundays and public holidays. Bound by their contract and the law, they are required to live in with their employers normally from Mondays to Saturdays, and often have to endure their employers’ intense demand for long hours as a result. It is common to see crowds of Filipino domestic workers pouring out in urban space on Sundays and public holidays, such as covered footbridges, parks and outside public buildings. What do they actually do outside their working hours, and how is it negotiated with their employers and peers? Do they really enjoy their leisure time? What social factors are at play in favouring and disfavouring their right—not as simply labours but as meaning-seeking individuals like everyone—to leisure? With an emerging human rights framework being incorporated in contemporary studies of leisure (Veal 2015), this study addresses these questions through contextualizing the narratives and habits of Filipino domestic workers’ leisure life in Hong Kong, and ultimately aims to safeguard migrant workers’ basic right to leisure.