I'm a lawyer, and over the 29 years I’ve been a lawyer I’ve had a number of clients who were OFWs or who were married to one, or who was closely related to one. Here are my observations:
- If it is a male who is the OFW, the male would either be a skilled worker (plumber, construction worker, for example) or a professional (engineer or nurse).
- If it is a male who is the OFW, chances are, he was single when he first went abroad, because it was always his dream of going abroad, or his work abroad was influenced by a parent or close relative who was also working abroad. It may even be that the relative who had been working abroad was the person who had recommended him for the job.
- The single male OFW may be the first of his family to travel and work abroad. His income will be shared with his family to help support the education of his other siblings so that they can finish college and also work abroad. They may have been orphaned and their grandparents or aunts and uncles sent them to school. Their earnings abroad will then “repay” their relatives for the cost of supporting them.
- If it is a married male who starts working abroad, it is because his work in the Philippines can no longer produce sufficient income for him or for the needs of his growing family. His income will no longer be able to support the cost of the children's education plus pay the rent and keep food on the table, meet emergencies, and leave some money for savings and investment.
- If a married male leaves to work abroad, it may be because he’d had trouble at work: either he did not get promoted or he’d had a disagreement with the boss, or all his friends at work have left for work abroad and it has worked out for them and their families all have a better standard of living.
- A married male may also work abroad if his earnings cannot support his own family and his parents especially if his parents get sick. Most Filipinos support their own children and they also help support their parents.
- Oftentimes, a married male has a wife who also works and they both feel that their children are not well cared for with two parents working and so they decide that one parent will work abroad and earn more than what the two parents had been earning while working in the Philippines. The other parent will either quit working to care for the family full time or work part-time or work on a home-based business instead.
- If a single female works abroad, it is usually because it has been their dream to work abroad or it has been their dream to live and migrate to the very country where they are working. Most children who have had family role models who were OFWs would also want to become an OFW when they grew up.
- A single female may work abroad to join other family members who are already working abroad. Often, going abroad is the family's dream or commonly-agreed strategy to pull the family out of poverty. Together abroad, they can still be a family and maintain family ties. They can be a support system and often, they can rent a house or an apartment and share the cost of rent and other utilities. In this way, they can also share the cost of supporting their parents or their own families. When their relatives come to visit them in the country where they work, at least one family member will have a day off and there will always be someone there to show them around.
- If the eldest female child goes abroad, it is often because the family had paid for that eldest child’s education and the cost of her travel abroad. In turn, that eldest female child will send money to support her other siblings so they can finish school and go abroad as well.
- If the OFW is a single female, she may marry someone she had met while abroad, or another Filipino working abroad, or else a national or citizen of the country where she is working. That single female who married abroad may “adopt” their siblings who are minors, or their nephews and nieces whose parents have abandoned them or whose parents can n longer support them because their parents are sick. If the female OFW “adopts” a sibling or nephew or niece, those adopted relatives would come to live with her where they can get a good education and get a job so they can help support the family they both left in the Philippines. That adopted sibling or niece and nephew would then be able to sponsor other relatives to come and migrate to the country where they are working.
- If the OFW became an OFW after she had married, the decision to work abroad may have been reached in agreement with a spouse who will also be working abroad. In that case, their child or children would be left with a relative until the couple has settled in the country where they are working and they will then send for their child or children.
- Sometimes, a married couple will decide to work abroad together, in the same country and in the same city so that they can preserve their marital relationship. Either that or they have grown apart emotionally and they want to migrate to a country where they can be divorced and be free to marry again because in the Philippines, there is no divorce.
- Most of the time, though, a married woman becomes an OFW because her husband has died and so she must support their family as a single parent, or else her husband has left her for another woman and refuses to support their children.
- Studies show that married women often work abroad when their husbands are unsuccessful at earning sufficient income because of low education, because the husband has experienced illness or disability, or because the husband lost his employment or has experienced a downturn in their business. The family may have gone into serious debt and working abroad is the only solution to earn sufficient income to pay the debt. Often, the male OFW may have had a brush with the law and cannot leave to work abroad so it will be the woman who will have to work abroad and fix the mess her husband had gotten them in.
- Still, other women work abroad because they would be too far out of reach of a verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive husband. The woman will be able to care for and support her own children but remove herself from an unsafe situation. She may be able to send for her children one by one and remove her own children from the influence and reach of her abusive husband, or, she may earn enough to get her marriage annulled in the Philippines.
What is important to remember is that working abroad is a viable and reliable strategy for Filipinos to augment income, support families, raise their standard of living, and realize their hopes and dreams. Working abroad has become a status symbol. It is a signifier of wealth and upward social mobility for Filipinos. What used to be a means to earn more has been wrapped up with ideas for self-actualization. Working abroad gives the ordinary Filipino from the lower or middle socioeconomic classes the opportunity to travel abroad and see the world that only the rich in the Philippines could do.
As for the salary, there are countries where the pay of migrant workers are significantly lower than the pay of nationals or citizens (Middle East countries). But there are countries that ensure equal pay for migrant workers and nationals alike (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the UK are examples).
Consider that an average Filipino worker receives around P600 as daily minimum wage. That amounts to about $10–12 USD per day of work. In a month, that Filipino minimum wage earner may earn only $300 USD. If that Filipino OFW works abroad as a domestic helper and earns $500 USD, that is income that is significantly higher considering the domestic helper does not need to pay rent or board and lodging while working because they live in their employer’s home. So, indeed, working as a domestic helper in another country may be a lucrative option for women who have only finished basic education and have no college degree.
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