Photo: ‘Migrant domestic workers are often overworked resulting in caregiver burden’ by Kua Chee Siong from The Straits Times

In aging societies like Singapore, eldercare has begun to expand beyond an elderly person’s immediate family, to involve live-in foreign domestic workers who are tasked to care for their charges. This new dimension of caregiving relations has often been portrayed in the media and public narratives in extremes, victimising only either the migrant worker (‘carer’) or the elderly person (‘cared for’).

In 'Tuning care relations between migrant caregivers and the elderly in Singapore' (Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 2020), Mr Jian Ann Liew (NUS Asia Research Institute), Professor Brenda S.A. Yeoh (NUS Asia Research Institute and Geography), Associate Professor Shirlena Huang (NUS Geography) and Professor Elaine Ho (NUS Asia Research Institute and Geography) zoom in on the interdependent relationship between migrant caregivers and their elderly care-recipients. Care relations are sustained because the elderly employer requires their needs to be met via help they cannot find elsewhere, while the migrant employee needs to hold on to the job, often because they are a breadwinner for their family.

The authors present a more nuanced view of how caregiving is a continuous, two-way process, through the lens of ‘tuning in’ and ‘tuning out’. Firstly, the caregiving relationship evolves across a spectrum of harmony and disharmony everyday, because migrant employees and their elderly employers may share the same close quarters but have very different subjective lived experiences. This requires both parties to accommodate each others’ routines and synchronise their everyday lives, thereby becoming more ‘attuned’ to each other.

Secondly, such ‘attunement’ also enables one party to anticipate the other’s needs and desires and fulfil them through embodied care. However, at the same time, prolonged proximity through co-living arrangements may lead elderly employers to have higher expectations of the care their employees should provide, widening the power distance between the 'master' employer and the 'servant' employee.

Thirdly, migrant employees and their elderly employers, who often have been residents in Singapore for some time, typically have vastly different socio-cultural worldviews from each other. More often than not, this can lead to instances of friction or disharmony, although they may sometimes find unexpected common ground.

Altogether, the caregiving relationship between the migrant employee and their elderly employer is one that is continuously refined and negotiated, in order for both parties to meet their needs. Caregiving is also a highly personalised process unique to each employer-employee pair, because it is forged or eroded on a one-on-one basis within the private sphere of the home, which is subject to less state intervention than other forms of migrant work. Most importantly, from the experiences of the authors’ subjects, care relations flourish when the elderly care recipient and migrant caregiver both become open to the idea of caring for each other.

In light of National Caregiver Day on February 17, understanding the dynamic and reciprocal ways in which caring relationships are sustained through the author's framework is the first step for us towards celebrating and honouring these caregivers, who help our loved ones live better lives.

Read the article here.