COVID-19 and Decent Work: Online Media Coverage on Indonesian Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Malaysia and Taiwan

Abstract

Among all other industries, the spread of COVID-19 also affected the formal labor of different industries including domestic workers at employers’ houses. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the phenomenon that how did full-time Indonesian female migrant domestic workers, in Malaysia and Taiwan, coped with inconvenient employment conditions during the pandemic. This article employed an explanatory qualitative approach. The data sources for this research were from secondary data, which mostly examined data available on online media related to four dimensions of decent work consisting of 1) employment security (losing a job), 2) protection (legally excluded/unregulated workers), 3) vulnerability (physical and mental abuse), and 4) income (low salary). The selected data from both national and international online media were analyzed by using NVivo 12+ software to correlate between the COVID-19 and working conditions of the Indonesian workers in Malaysia and Taiwan. This research reveals that full-time Indonesian female migrant domestic workers, temporarily living in employers’ houses, have coped with inconvenient employment conditions during the pandemic. The findings have argued that COVID-19 caused employment insecurity by limiting potential foreign female domestic workers to find a new job; further, it also raised the insufficient protection that resulted into more vulnerability. In terms of income, COVID-19 also contributed to salary deduction for female workers in Malaysia and Taiwan.