Introduction
In 1998, Grace B. Tuppil flew from Manila to Hong Kong, hoping to find better prospects for herself and her family, leaving her little daughter back in the Philippines. After twenty-seven years, she finally returned to her homeland after retiring, only to find her grandchildren uncomfortable around her, while her daughter continued to experience strain in their relationship (personal communication, July 1, 2025). Her story reflects the case of Josie, a fictional migrant domestic worker played by Vilma Santos in the movie Anak, whose return from abroad was not welcomed by her eldest daughter because of her mother’s perceived neglect (Quintos, 2000). While one of these women is real and the other is fictional, both of them illustrate experiences shared by many Filipinas who left their homeland to become domestic helpers in the Middle East, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, where they have become a common sight in many households, doing not only household work but also taking care of their employer’s children.
Scholarship on maternal migration often focuses on the tangible economic gains of education, food security, and improved family incomes (Asis & Ruiz-Marave, 2013; Cortes, 2015). The emotional costs associated with maternal migration and the circumstances that make this sacrifice normal, however, have not received much academic consideration. This article addresses this gap by connecting the emotional consequences of maternal migration to the institutional and gendered structures that normalize it. This article suggests that rather than being an unintentional side effect of labor migration, the emotional toll paid by the left-behind children is a foreseeable result of the existence of two mutually reinforcing mechanisms – on the one hand, the institutionalization of labor export through Philippine state policy and, on the other, the patriarchal gender relations that position mothers as caregivers while treating father absence as a natural extension of the breadwinner model of masculinity. The article first reviews the literature on the economic and emotional consequences of parental migration, then traces the historical institutionalization and feminization of labor export in the Philippines, and finally examines how these processes intersect with gendered family expectations to shape the emotional consequences of maternal migration.
Literature Review
Filipino labor migration scholarship can be roughly divided along two axes of inquiry. The first body of research, primarily driven by economic and public health considerations, focuses on the consequences of parental migration on observable child outcomes and concludes that parental remittances positively influence education and nutrition (Asis & Ruiz-Marave, 2013; Cortes, 2015). However, the sociological approach provides an additional perspective on this issue and studies the costs of such practices for family relationships. The idea of “mothering from a distance,” which describes the strategies used by migrant mothers in order to take care of their children and maintain their relationship from afar, is central to Parreñas’ (2001) work. Madianou and Miller (2011) further develop the idea of mother-child relationships affected by migration and analyze the impact of modern technology on the process.
The two bodies of literature often do not engage with each other explicitly, and even where they do, they have tended to conceptualize the economic and emotional consequences of migration separately, rather than in tandem. An additional weakness inherent in both sets of literature is that relatively little thought has been given to what makes the emotional consequences of maternal separation from children distinct from those of separation of parents in general (Antia et al., 2020; Battistella & Conaco, 1998). Parreñas (2001) and Alcantara (1994) identify patriarchal family ideology as one explanation for this question, yet this link is rarely combined with the institutional background that led to the dependence of the Philippine state on feminized migration (Battistella & Asis, 2011; Brillo, 2008). This article brings these perspectives together to argue that institutionalization of feminized labor migration and patriarchal family expectations mutually reinforce one another.
Methods
Historical institutionalism provides a way of understanding how the series of policy decisions beginning with the Marcos administration led to path-dependent processes that normalized labor migration. The analysis draws on documentary evidence, including legislation, labor statistics, policy addresses, and sociological scholarship, alongside qualitative studies documenting the experiences of migrant mothers and left-behind children. The analysis connects macro-level policy development with lived experiences of migrant families. This research approach fits appropriately in the present study, considering that feminization of the migration flow in the Philippines is not an isolated case but the result of a chain of events that includes policy decisions, economic processes, and cultural developments in the country throughout different administrations. The study traces developments from the post-independence period through successive administrations beginning in the 1970s, analyzing the policies, statistics, and sociological literature related to each administration to identify the institutional processes that contributed to the feminization of migration and the cultural normalization of migration as a heroic national endeavor. The analysis uses historical and qualitative evidence to trace the mechanisms linking state policy, feminized migration, and family relationships rather than estimating the causal effects statistically.
Conceptual Framework
A burgeoning economic crisis leads to the formulation of a labor export policy, necessitated by global imperialist pressure, which is then institutionalized into the state’s long-term economic agenda with a concurrent thrust of propaganda to normalize and glorify the state policy, thereby softening the emotional and economic hardship born out of such policy. Shifts in international labor market demand then proceed to result in the feminization of labor migration, and thus lead to the formation of transnational families characterized by maternal absence. The maternal absence is associated with emotional strain among left-behind children, and the emotional consequences of maternal absence are shaped by gender relations dictated through patriarchal norms of gender roles. The absence of the mother is felt more significantly than that of the father in the lived experience of children.
Discussion
Historical Analysis: The Institutionalization of Labor Export
The institutionalization of labor export created the structural conditions for the feminization of Philippine migration. This section traces how successive administrations responded to economic pressures by expanding overseas employment and, over time, normalizing the export of increasingly feminized forms of labor. The state resolved its economic crises through labor export rather than developing its own productive potential, becoming increasingly dependent on exporting female labor as successive administrations took power. Post-independence economic policies left the Philippines vulnerable to persistent unemployment, foreign exchange constraints, and uneven development. The Bell Trade Act gave American dominance in the economy of the Philippines by granting it parity privileges that enabled Americans to extract natural resources and use public utilities without offering any benefit in return to Filipinos (Jimenez, 2020). The Philippines tried to implement agrarian reform but failed to do so, particularly around land redistribution. The inflation experienced in the Philippines during President Ferdinand Marcos’s tenure in office as a result of his import substitution and export-oriented industrialization program was exacerbated by chronic unemployment and lack of foreign exchange in the 1970s; the subsequent political upheaval after the declaration of Martial Law by Marcos only worsened the situation in the country (Brillo, 2008). Against this background emerged a labor export policy adopted by the Marcos government that opened the way for a massive and prolonged migration from the country. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, taking into account the economic boom in the Middle Eastern countries rich in oil and the resultant need for construction and engineering workers, the Marcos government saw labor export as a solution to the country’s economic troubles (Gonzales, 1998). What eventually turned out to be an instrument to save the country’s ailing economy only worsened the problem. It did not solve the country’s unemployment problem but rather entrenched its dependency on migrant workers. As early as 1974, the regime of Ferdinand Marcos introduced Presidential Decree 442, which made possible an overseas employment program, one that marked the difference from previous waves of labor migration in that the state became an actor in deciding who to export and under what conditions (Brillo, 2008). This represented a major institutional shift as it entailed not only the introduction of a new regulation but also a broader transformation in the role of the state, which increasingly treated labor itself as an exportable economic resource. The migration of females intensified in the following years, mainly in the areas of domestic and care work, taking into account the trend that emerged in the 1970s when Filipina women dominated male laborers in moving from the countryside to urban areas to become domestic workers (Battistella & Asis, 2011). With the end of massive construction projects in the Middle East during the late 1970s and the early 1980s, there were fewer construction jobs for Filipino men, while the new wealth of the region resulted in an increased demand for domestic servants (Battistella & Asis, 2011). On the other hand, the growth in the number of women in the workforce in East and Southeast Asia created another domestic care shortage, which increased the need for Filipino workers even more and made Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan major destinations for Filipino domestic workers (Battistella & Asis, 2011).
The fall of the Marcos administration in the 1986 People Power revolution placed Corazon Aquino, the first female President of the Philippines, into power. Inheriting an economy that was already suffering from mismanagement and political instability, which hindered foreign investments, Aquino ultimately decided on the continuation of the labor export policy. As the country was still plagued by foreign exchange crises and unemployment issues, the Aquino administration did not just continue the labor export policy but expanded it and gave it cultural validity. To emphasize the role of the overseas workers in the economic progress of the country, Aquino bestowed on them the title of bagong bayani, or modern-day heroes, who embody qualities of being brave, humble, and selfless in serving a higher cause (Encinas-Franco, 2015; Eugenio, 2023). This alleviated attention to the emotional hardships experienced by migrant workers by tying their identity to a broader national cause. Effectively, the consequence of such a gesture went beyond the realm of respect, as it turned the labor export policy, which had failed to materialize because of government ineffectiveness, into an expression of patriotism and added an emotional and moral dimension to a practice which families did not have a real choice but to adopt. Within the scope of this new and already elevated labor export policy, the number of Filipino migrant workers increased from 449,271 in 1987 to 686,461 in 1992 (Brillo, 2008). It is worth mentioning that the process of increasing the number of female domestic helpers occurred at the same time: in 1988, when Corazon Aquino delivered her bagong bayani speech at the St. Margaret’s Church in Hong Kong, her audience consisted mostly of female domestic helpers (Encinas-Franco, 2015). The share of domestic helpers within the total number of newly hired service workers amounted to about seventy percent (Battistella & Asis, 2011).
The Gloria Arroyo government came into power after the failed impeachment of President Joseph Estrada and his subsequent resignation. Even though domestic employment numbers were increasing, the Arroyo government continued to promote labor export as the main economic policy of the Philippines, and the annual goal of sending out one million OFWs abroad was finally met in 2006 (Battistella & Asis, 2011). The Arroyo government further entrenched the reliance of the state on feminized labor migration by promoting domestic workers as skillful professionals in the international arena: Filipina domestic helpers who successfully passed the training in first aid, children’s health, communications, high-rise fire evacuations, pet care, and house safety would qualify to be called “supermaids” (Brillo, 2008; Guevarra, 2014). By giving a veneer of specialized skill to Filipina domestic labor, the state and recruiting agencies ensured that the labor exported from the Philippines was more competitive than that exported from other countries. Thus, not only did the feminization trend boost the volume of labor export but also increased its competitiveness by maintaining the economic dependency that was needed in order to sustain the labor export in the first place (Guevarra, 2014). It is clear that the feminization of labor export continued apace: while the ratio of females to males among the migrant labor workforce used to be 1:3, in the early 2000s, it reversed to 3:1 and reached its peak in 2004 when women comprised up to 75% of the land-based workforce of migrant workers (Battistella & Asis, 2011; Cortes, 2015). Such feminization was supported by domestic labor market conditions where female unemployment rates were higher than 4% on several occasions during the turn of the millennium (World Bank, n.d.-b), while overall unemployment rates went past this number only once (World Bank, n.d.-c). The number of Filipina workers classified as laborers or unskilled workers, largely made up of domestic helpers and cleaners, increased from 297,000 in 2000 to 363,000 in 2005, up to 500,000 in 2007 (Philippine Statistics Authority, 2024); there were as many as 91,412 in 2006 (Battistella & Asis, 2011).
This process occurred through a feedback loop in all three of these periods. As legislation passed, the creation of specific organizations supported female labor migration, which in turn created the economic incentives to expand and promote the very process (Brillo, 2008). At the present time, economic disparity and poverty continue to be the main structural reasons behind migration (Peralta et al., 2024); however, it is the culture of migration and migrant networks developed through the course of time that best explain its continued presence (Brillo, 2008).
The culture of migration is much older than the active involvement of the state in the process; it grew out of labor movements practiced in the colonial and post-colonial times; however, the involvement of the state gave this practice the form of what is known as the “culture of salvation,” a unique Filipino notion equated with achieving a better life (Brillo, 2008). According to intercultural communication scholar Junya Morooka, this became a naturalized discourse, one that was spoken about with such consistency and broadcast so pervasively throughout Filipino media that the values and logic behind it were internalized as a matter of course in Philippine society (Brillo, 2008, p. 72). What was originally a reaction of the state to an economic dilemma became by the early 2000s a matter of common sense. “Feminizing” the system through means such as the supermaid became a means of making more use of the female population in the Philippines in particular; each successive administration was not simply repeating its predecessor’s policy, but extending the jurisdiction of the state further into the lives of Filipina women, reinforcing the unequal position of Filipina women within the global care economy while also presenting their labor as heroic. Although, from a macrostructural level, these political actions can be seen as the Philippine government adapting to changing situations to better capture economic value, this differentiation only further deepens Filipina workers as an export product. The government’s settling into the role as a broker of domestic labor to more privileged countries made the pursuit of overseas care work for women increasingly a sole means of survival rather than a choice. While the institutionalization of labor export helps explain the growth in migration and its feminization, it does not by itself explain why maternal migration may produce greater emotional disruption than paternal migration. In order to grasp the difference between these two types of migration, it becomes necessary to shift the focus from the history of policy-making at the macro level to the gender organization of the Filipino family at the micro level.
Transnational Motherhood: Kinship Ties and Mothering from a Distance
This section examines the consequences of maternal migration for family relationships and explains why maternal absence may produce different emotional effects from paternal absence, drawing on feminist political economy and the gendered division of reproductive labor. This refers to a system where caring, emotional labor, and maintaining family ties have been attributed to women as something extra done by them within the household in addition to being economically active outside the house (Alcantara, 1994). The feminist political economy accounts for the invisible labor and feminization of labor that adds to the exploitation of capitalism by profiting from women’s undervalued work and degraded social positioning (Cantillon et al., 2023). Social reproduction theory, in tandem with feminist political theory, argues that at the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy, women are exploited into performing reproductive duties, and their labor is not accounted as work but normalized in glorified feminine virtues of the mother and the wife as ultimate caregiver (Laslett & Brenner, 1989). In the context of this study, migration does not eliminate this gendered division of labor but redistributes and relocates care across borders. This shows how much of “family” is made up in Philippine society with the help of mothers being physically present, and how, under the dual discrimination of economic exploitation and cultural exploitation of patriarchy, women are reduced to sufferers of an estranged relationship with their children. At the same time, the burden of caregiving does not confine male migrants; therefore, their relationship with the child, as this paper goes on to show, suffers less severely.
The role of migration in the Philippine economy is significant in that remittances contribute to 8.7 percent of the country’s GDP (World Bank, n.d.-a). In terms of the family budget, seventy-five percent of remittance funds go towards paying for food, health care costs, school fees, and housing, while the rest goes into savings or investments (Rich, 2017). Remittances have both monetary and emotional value, as expenditures made out of remittances are often considered a demonstration of love, meaning that remittances serve not only economic but also emotional purposes (Rich, 2017). From the perspective of the care economy theory, however, it shows that remittances do something that the family budget cannot disclose – partially substituting the financial transfers for forms of care that cannot be physically provided across distance. Even though there is ample empirical evidence showing a link between maternal remittances and positive school performance and family well-being (Asis & Ruiz-Marave, 2013), and although it has been demonstrated that there is a connection between the age at which migrants leave their families and the psychological impact of such an event – separation in the first three years of a child’s life being more detrimental than separation in later stages of childhood development (Fu et al., 2025) – qualitative research has shown that such material benefits may go hand in hand with a loss of emotional bonding and abandonment (Madianou & Miller, 2011; Parreñas, 2001).
The women who migrate for work in foreign nations constitute what the literature calls transnational families because their members exist and operate across two or more states (Schmalzbauer, 2004). Migrant mothers often remain central to the emotional labor of transnational families (Parreñas, 2001). This creates the need for what Parreñas (2001) calls “mothering from a distance”, a set of strategies migrant mothers develop to maintain caregiving while physically apart. Transnational mothering, thus, does not just refer to geographical distance but rather how motherhood is constructed when its traditional performance becomes impractical due to geographical distance, since mothering involves being present, feeding the children, among other things. A two-year contract duration applies to domestic helpers; hence, visits to families take place seldom (BIPO, 2021). Also, immigration policies make reunion difficult in host nations since they limit dependent migration (Parreñas, 2001). The case of Ermie Contado about how she came back home to children who didn’t recognize her anymore
"When I came home, my daughters were teenagers already. (Starts crying.) … I did not know who they were, but they just kept on screaming “Inay, Inay!” [Mom, Mom!] I asked them who was who, and they said: “I’m Sally and I’m Sandra.”(Parreñas, 2001)
This physical distance leads to an emotional distance as well. Many times, children see familial intimacy and economic provisions as mutually exclusive since their mothers come home very rarely but send lots of money, which proves to them that the family is not more important than economics (Parreñas, 2001).
For Anita, she communicated that she was not able to improve the depth and quality of the relationship: “It’s very limited. Whatever you want to say is very limited. The kinds of conversations you have are always about money, practical things. You don’t really have the time to be closer.” (Madianou & Miller, 2011, p. 16)
Such ambivalence is maintained even after reunification, as one child relates to feeling “torn” between desiring her returned mother to remain and desiring a return to the daily routine established in her absence (Madianou & Miller, 2011, p. 15). Another reason for the resentful attitude toward their mothers could be a desire for reciprocation regarding sacrifice; sending remittances does not constitute a sufficient act on the part of migrant mothers according to one respondent (Parreñas, 2001, p. 379), as there is a discrepancy between what mothers consider proper long-distance parenting and what is needed of it by the children.
Some of these tensions also arise from the coping mechanisms migrant mothers use to manage the guilt and emotional strain of separation. These mechanisms can be understood through social reproduction theory as an attempt to do care work indirectly when direct care is no longer possible. Parreñas (2001) mentions three strategies employed by migrant mothers: the commodification of love, where mothers use frequent gift-giving as a substitute for their physical presence, which children often perceive as inadequate substitutes for physical presence repression of emotional strain, which might alleviate the mother’s stress but does not lower the relational toll for the child; and the use of communication technologies to shrink time and distance, which the children see as inadequate rather than comforting, as the communication through distance tends to revolve around practical issues rather than intimate ones (Madianou & Miller, 2011). Each of these tactics seeks to replicate a maternal role but lacks the physical presence assumed by Filipino family ideologies as necessary for fulfilling the role, and each, in the words of the children themselves, fails precisely for that reason. These familial tensions have quantifiable consequences. The children of migrant mothers demonstrate more difficulties in their academic achievement and poorer physical and emotional well-being than the children of migrant fathers or the non-migrants (Antia et al., 2020; Caritas Internationalis, n.d.), as well as poor social adjustment and increased risk of early pregnancy, marriage, or drug use (Caritas Internationalis, n.d.); gendered differences in performance at school are particularly stark, with absentee mothers’ children having worse academic records and class rank than absentee fathers’ children (Battistella & Conaco, 1998). These differences are consistent with the gendered organization of Filipino family life, in which mothers are supposed to care for their offspring and fathers to provide for them (Parreñas, 2001), thus making paternal absence more compatible with prevailing expectations about caregiving, as far as the framework of care is concerned so that his departure could be accepted by the children without any regrets, reflected in the respondent’s remark that “He is away, but so what?” (Parreñas, 2001, p. 385).
Conclusion
This article argues that the negative impact of maternal migration on the relationship between mother and child is the consequence of a twofold process. First, the formalization of migration policies and their cultural acceptance, which continues despite government intervention to construct a domestic economy, has made economic success possible only at the expense of emotional difficulty, and in turn makes labor export a necessary replacement for development in a structural sense. Second, the persistent gender ideology not only channels the abandonment feeling felt by children towards their mothers but also accepts the presence of absent fathers in keeping with the breadwinner ideal of gender ideologies (Alcantara, 1994). Together, these processes help explain why maternal migration can produce distinctive emotional consequences for children.
Indeed, the story of feminized labor migration persists up to today, and thus the experiences of migrant mothers and their children remain central to understanding the long-term consequences of feminized migration. In transnational families, “doing family” increasingly replaces “doing gender,” with transnational households adapting the division of traditional responsibilities to cope with the physical distance (Parreñas, 2001, pp. 385–387). While this demonstrates the resilience of transnational families, it cannot fix the underlying reasons that compel people to migrate in the first place. Indeed, in its entirety, the case of the Philippines demonstrates how national development can be dependent on the commodification of care and emotions of the female population. Recognizing these costs complicates narratives that evaluate migration primarily through remittances and economic growth. The Philippine case hence demonstrates why assessments of migration and development must account for the organization and social reproduction of care alongside economic outcomes.