Life Events and Timing of Emigration: A Case Study of Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Abstract

Female migrant workers are on the rise in the world. How significant life events are related to their timing of emigration? Drawing the Survey of Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong we address how life events and family status are related to migration patterns of female migrant workers. The discrete-time model uses the pooled person-year data (N=22,676) to examine how the chance of the first international migration varies by (1) the occurrence of marriage, divorce and childbirth (2) the lagged effect of such life events (3) the sociodemographic status as a result of such life events (4) human capital and market positions. The marriage “events” (in the current year or in the previous year) reduce the chance of international migration but the effect of the marriage “status” is not significant; there are also different effects by the birth events, the “lagged” birth events, and the number of children. The findings also suggest that people with higher education and better market positions are more likely to conduct international migration earlier. The logistic regression model (N=1879) uses the individual respondents’ life course patterns, human capital and market positions to examine the chance of foreign domestic workers to carry out single or multiple times of international migration. Respondents who are never married or those who were not married at the time of their first move are more likely to have conducted multiple times of international migration. The more prestigious employment status prior to migration is also positively associated with their propensity to conduct international migration for multiple times.