Taking a top-down approach, the study identifies four major laws concerning naturalisation, residency, employment, mobility and fertility that regulate the lives of foreign caregivers, and analyses parliamentary debates, government policy briefings, press releases and migrant handbooks. It also examines longitudinal social survey results in order to understand how the host society perceives Southeast Asian migrants. (p. 2)
Cheng describes "migrant women’s self-identities as workers, victims, carers and human beings ... [as] deeply entangled" (p. 3). She points to how they are typically discussed in terms of their victimhood and their status as important sources of income for their families back at home. Their sexuality and reproduction, she argues, are not seen as a topic for research due in part to "methodological sexism"; in society, they are more often seen either in terms of morality (in their home countries) or as "a threat to profitability" (from the point of view of their agents) (p. 3). From the point of view of the host state (in this case, Taiwan), "their potential to give birth (particularly to mixed children fathered by local men) ... [leads to their being] considered a threat to the cohesion of national identity" (p. 4). Thus, the goal of the host society (and the state) is to ensure that migrant women remain productive (but not reproductive) as workers who can remain outsiders to the society rather than settling in as residents.
Cheng illustrates this by tracing the history of legislation regarding migrant women caregivers since they have been able to legally come to Taiwan starting in 1992. She first points out that the need for migrant caregivers has grown out of the aging of Taiwanese society, the traditional emphasis on providing elder care at home, and the increasing participation of Taiwanese women in the workplace. While there is a desire (at least on the part of the government) for local caregivers (in the form of middle-aged Taiwanese women), that kind of work has been looked down upon as "dirty, difficult and demeaning" (p. 5), (ironically) through its association with foreign caregivers. The pay for migrant caregivers is also artificially kept down through a government cap on their income. "However," Cheng argues, "this economic cheapness [that makes the migrant women desirable as workers] runs in tandem with the perceived socio-political costs of accommodating foreign women at the prime age of fertility who are seen as the undesirable other" (p. 5).
Cheng looks at the development of four laws that govern the position of foreign caregivers in Taiwan: the Nationality Act, the Immigration Act, the Employment Services Act, and the Labour Standards Act. She points out how these acts developed and work together to render foreign caregivers ineligible for naturalization despite the extensions on how long they were allowed to work in Taiwan (up to 14 years); in effect, they are "permanently temporary" (p. 5, emphasis in original), which benefits Taiwanese society by providing cheap long-term workers while at the same time avoiding the purported "social problems" their presence might bring (problems that Cheng points out legislators didn't define, except for the fear that they would become involved with local men) (p. 5). Criticism of these and other measures to control the movements of migrant women, such as not allowing them to decide for themselves to change jobs, have not resulted in effective policies to protect their rights (p. 7).
Cheng next goes through the history of required pregnancy screenings for foreign caregivers, which was required for 10 years (until 2002) before coming to Taiwan, right after arrival, and every six months during residence in Taiwan. Caregivers found to be pregnant would be expelled. Although the requirement to be tested every six months was abolished in 2002, it was not until 2015 that the final pregnancy test (the pre-entry test) was no longer required (p. 8). Unfortunately, migrant caregivers are not always informed of their rights because the handbook is only published in Chinese and English. [This makes me want to find information about the status of the teaching of Chinese to migrant workers in Taiwan. (And English, too, although I'm reminded of Pei-Chia Lan's 2003 article (pdf), "'They have more money but I speak better English!' Transnational encounters between Filipina domestics and Taiwanese employers."] The handbook still discourages migrant workers from getting pregnant, warning of "dire consequences" to the mother and the child, particularly if the child is born out of wedlock (p. 8).
[To add something about Lan's (2003) article: she observes that in 2002, the percentage of Filipina domestic workers in Taiwan dropped drastically, and the percentage of Indonesian workers rose almost as dramatically (p. 155). She attributes this to employers' beliefs that Indonesians are more complaint than Filipinas, a characterization that she associates with social and linguistic factors:
Indonesian workers, who speak little English in general, are less capable to verbally bargain with their employers. Besides, Indonesian migrants are even more isolated in Taiwan than their Filipina counterparts, who are at least able to retrieve information by reading English newspapers and have affiliations with Catholic churches and NGOs that offer some legal assistance and counseling. (p. 156)
"Indonesian workers in Taiwan," Lan goes on, "... have no choice but to learn Mandarin Chinese or Holo-Taiwanese for the sake of communication. As such, Taiwanese employers get the upper hand in their linguistic exchanges and social interactions with Indonesian maids" (p. 156). This adds another, sociolinguistic, element to what Isabelle Cheng, Hsin-I Cheng, and Todd Sandel have discussed.]
Cheng points out that although the government has changed some policies in response to human rights associations' criticisms and in order to be able to continue to brand Taiwan as a nation "founded on human rights protection" (人權立國), those policies don't necessarily reflect the views of Taiwan's citizens, the majority of whom (according to surveys) view Southeast Asian migrants as undesirable (p. 9). Taiwanese are willing to 'import' Southeast Asian caregivers, but they are not interested in having them become part of society. As Cheng puts it, "Such a scenario makes Taiwan a ‘walled’ migration state (Hollifield, 2004) which embraces economic openness for the purposes of reaping the fruit of migration but ensures socio-political closure in gatekeeping the boundaries of national community" (p. 9).
I would note that of the surveys Cheng mentions toward the end, the most recent one that specifically addressed the question of whether foreign workers should be allowed to become residents was from 2006; She also cites a 2018 survey that asked whether Taiwan should encourage immigration from Southeast Asia--only 8.4% agreed with this idea (p. 9). I'm not sure how this information squares with Sandel's discussion of foreign brides as the "fifth ethnic group," except perhaps to note Cheng's argument that at this point in time, it appears that the state and the populace are evidently not in agreement about the place of Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan. This article doesn't touch on Hsin-I Cheng's point about foreign brides being characterized in terms of their relationships with Taiwanese husbands, in-laws, or children. Perhaps the survey statistic points to a difference between how individual decisions by families to try to carry on the family name are viewed versus how a possible official decision to encourage Southeast Asian immigration on a larger scale would be viewed. I'd have to get a look at the actual questions used in the cited survey. (Unfortunately, the website doesn't seem to be working right now. I guess I'll try to come back to it later to see.)
I got the wrong survey--that link is to the 2006 survey. The correct (2018) survey is reported on in this article by Timothy Rich in The Diplomat: Rich surveyed 1000 Taiwanese on the web, asking them one of four questions: "Taiwan should encourage immigration," "Taiwan should encourage immigration of skilled workers," "Taiwan should encourage immigration from Southeast Asian countries," or "Taiwan should encourage immigration of skilled workers from Southeast Asian countries." As he reports, questions that included the idea of "skilled workers" scored higher than those that didn't, although "skilled Southeast Asian immigration" was agreed to by only 44.6% of the respondents to that question, and the question about immigration from Southeast Asian countries that didn't mention skilled workers was agreed to (as Cheng notes) by only 8.4% of its respondents. Not being a statistics guy, I can't vouch for his methods (and he's not asking me to!). Web surveys can be a bit iffy, of course, since the respondents are kind of self-selecting. It would have been interesting, for instance, to get a little demographic information about who responded and how he sought out the respondents. I'd like to see if this kind of survey has been conducted with a larger group.
Going back to the 2006 survey that Isabelle Cheng cites, I'd note that there's one question in the survey (questions here; pdf) that asks, "Do you agree or disagree with the statement, 'Foreign laborers who work legally in Taiwan for at least seven years should be allowed to apply for long-term residency'?" (請問您贊不贊成若「外籍勞工在台灣合法工作七年以上，就可申請長期居留」？). Cheng notes that 67.6% of respondents disagreed with the statement in 2006.
There are more recent surveys, but the questions seem to be different. This 2016 survey asks questions about attitudes towards a son's or friend's decision to marry someone from the Mainland, an overseas Chinese from Southeast Asia, a Vietnamese, or a Southeast Asian who's not of Chinese ethnicity. It also asks questions about whether the government should restrict Mainland Chinese or Southeast Asian spouses from obtaining Taiwan ID cards. Nothing, though, about foreign laborers.
There are some questions in this survey from 2015 about whether foreigners should be allowed to get ROC citizenship: they divide the groups into "European/American/Japanese professionals" (歐美日專業人士), "Domestic helpers from Southeast Asia" (東南亞的外傭), "Laborers or fishermen from Southeast Asia" (東南亞籍的勞工或漁工), " Let's look at the answers:
For European/American/Japanese professionals:
- Should strictly restrict: 26.9% (I'm taking the first column of percentages)
- Should restrict a bit: 24.6%
- Should try not to limit: 45.2%
- (The rest, 3.3%, didn't answer or said they didn't know)
- Should strictly restrict: 47.8%
- Should restrict a bit: 25.7%
- Should try not to limit: 23.6%
- (The rest, 2.9%, didn't answer or said they didn't know)
- Should strictly restrict: 51.2%
- Should restrict a bit: 24.3%
- Should try not to limit: 21.6%
- (The rest, 2.9%, didn't answer or said they didn't know)
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