Sri Sunarti Purwaningsih

Children of Mothers on Labour Contracts Overseas: the Case of Javanese Families in Indonesia Sri Sunarti Purwaningsih

Since the early 1980s thousands of Indonesian women have migrated to the Middle East to work on two-year contracts as domestic servants. Many were married and already had young children. Under the conditions of the contract, their families had to remain in Indonesia and thus their young children were entrusted to caregivers. The book evaluates the impact of childcare strategies of substitute caregivers on morbidity and nutritional status of children of mothers on overseas labour contracts. Despite the fact that the children of women on labour contracts lived away from their mothers, their morbidity pattern was not significantly different from those whose mothers were present. But stunting among children of migrants was greater, suggesting chronic malnutrition. Notwithstanding the high earnings of women workers, their families lived in poverty. Also children of migrant mothers did not benefit from their mothers' earnings partly because of the spending patterns of their family left behind.