How does the EU benefit the U.S?

Hong Kong: Would Western countries (US, EU, etc) benefit economically from adopting Asia-style Foreign Domestic Helper visa programs to reduce childcare costs?

• It appears that advanced Asian financial centres like Hong Kong and Singapore benefit from their Foreign Domestic Helper (FDH), or 'Maid', visa programs, by allowing both parents to work full-time without the need to pay high childcare costs.   Would the US and European countries benefit from adopting such a program?

• Answer:

  No.  This is not going to work in the United States. The big problem is economics.  The salary difference between the Philippines/Indonesia and HK is huge.  The salary difference between HK and Malaysia/Thailand is smaller, and there are few maids from Malaysia or Thailand, because it's just not worth the trouble. The only large country next to the United States which could be a source of this type of labor is Mexico, and Mexico has salary levels that are closer to Malaysia than to Indonesia.  This means that the salaries that you'd have to offer to convince someone to come to the US are much higher, and so you are better off sending them to day care. Salary levels are important because when you have someone handling your kids, you want the "cream of the crop". The salaries that Indonesian and Filipinos maids get is huge by local standards, and so you can attract the best and the brightest.  Once the salary levels increase, the best and the brightest find other things to do, and so the people that you end up with are people that you feel nervous watching your kids. In addition HK is a city-state.  There just isn't a supply of local people wanting to do domestic work.  By contrast, Taiwan has lots of rural people that would be happy to work as nannies, and so the requirements for domestic workers are extremely high (i.e. you can import someone to work as a nurse, but you can't technically import someone to work as a maid).  In the US, you have large groups of people that are willing to do domestic work, and you have to run through them before even thinking of importing labor. HK maids sign up knowing that they aren't going to be allowed to stay permanently in HK.  If you are a Mexican or Mainland Chinese, a program in which you know that there is *ZERO* chance of you getting permanent residency in the United States doesn't look that attractive.  It's getting less attractive in HK.  Filipinos are starting to prefer Canada. There's also a legal issue. A child of an HK maid is not an HK resident, whereas someone born to a guest worker in the United States would have automatic citizenship.  This is one big reason that HK doesn't import labor from the Mainland because a Chinese citizens born in HK does get automatic residency whereas a child of an Indonesian or Filipino does not.  This isn't a mere legal technicality but it gets to the core of what it means to be a citizen. There are also socio-political aspects.... In Hong Kong, you have relatively few permanent residents who are Indonesian or Filipino, and so you can political keep them from getting permanent residency.  In addition, Hong Kong has some draconian laws regarding identification easy for the police to deport people that are not legally allowed to be in HK.  By law, maids have to live with their employer, and the employer is legally responsible to insure that the maid has not overstayed their visa. The other thing is that by law HK maids have the right to things like maternity leave, sick leave, paid holidays, free health care, and they cannot be fired because of pregnancy or illness.  One problem with setting up a US program is that US workers are going to be annoyed that maids will be getting better benefits than a lot of US workers have, but if you don't provide these benefits, then it's going to be rather unattractive for people to move to HK. In the US, once you have people in the US, there is going to be a very strong political pressure to allow them to be permanent residents.  In addition, the US is much larger so that it's much easier for someone to "officially disappear." Also the economics of child care is different, because: 1) It's impossible to open a private inexpensive child care center in Hong Kong.  The rent will kill you. 2) The pressure cooker nature of the school system means that babysitters don't exist in Hong Kong 3) Maids also double as English tutors.  One reason that HK parents want a maid is so their kid grows up speaking English. And then there are psychological factors... 1) I think this is a British thing, but Americans are *far* more uncomfortable with having a maid, particularly a full time live-in maid. 2) Also having domestic workers of a given ethnicity makes Americans extremely uncomfortable for historical reasons.  One reason that HK imports Filipinos and Indonesians rather than Mainland Chinese or Vietnamese to do domestic duties is that Filipinos and Indonesians look different and so you can more easily spot a maid in a crowd of people.  This leads to a ethnic based job system that is tolerable in a post-colonial society (i.e. for 150 years the Europeans were at the top in HK), but Americans would never tolerate it. The British colonial view is that all people are not created equal but the upper class has a duty to the lower class.  The American view is that all people are created equal, but because all people are created equal you are on your own.  So maids in HK have "second class citizenship" but they have (by law) free health care. 3) On the supply side, it turns out that being a maid is a very high status job in Indonesia.  I've been told that it is very common for middle class and upper class families in Indonesia to hire maids, and so becoming a maid in Hong Kong is very high status.  On the flip side, most maids don't really want to stay in HK, and they want to go home eventually.  The fact that most maids don't want to stay in HK, and most locals don't want them to stay makes everything work out.