Among Filipina migrant domestic workers, the concept of holistic ease has shifted from personal well-being to the ability to provide for their families back home

As of 2023, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA, 2024) estimated that there were 2.16 million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), with women accounting for the majority at 1.20 million. Of the total OFW population, about 37% held elementary occupations, including precarious household service (PSA, 2024).

This qualitative study explores the mental health and overall wellbeing of Filipina migrant domestic workers through the Indigenous Filipino concept of ginhawa (holistic wellbeing). Moving past traditional Western psychological frameworks, the research reveals that global labor migration fundamentally shifts the meaning of ginhawa. Instead of representing a present state of physical, emotional, and spiritual ease, wellbeing is reduced to a financialized concept where workers sacrifice their own current mental health and endure high levels of distress to ensure the economic solvency and basic survival of their families back home. Through in-depth interviews with Filipina domestic workers, the study highlights how compounding identities—being a woman, a migrant, and a domestic worker within discriminatory host-country labor hierarchies—amplify personal precarity and isolation. Key findings show that holistic ease is redefined strictly as sending remittances, causing workers to intentionally suppress personal distress while navigating the severe emotional toll of transnational mothering. Furthermore, while workers rely on informal coping mechanisms like social media and prayer, formal mental health systems remain largely inaccessible, stigmatized, or absent. The study calls for a transition toward transnational mental health support and policies that protect the holistic health and basic rights of migrant workers beyond a remittance-centric focus.

This article significantly advances global migrant literature by using Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino Psychology) to explain why migrant populations often display a high tolerance for severe psychological distress, effectively bridging Global South psychologies with Western theories of precarity. By exposing the “maternal tax” and dismantling the romanticized “migrant-as-hero” narrative, the study illustrates how global capitalism colonizes cultural understandings of health by converting an Indigenous concept of “vital breath” and shared identity into a financialized commodity. Furthermore, its intersectional critique provides a comparative analysis of distinct host-country labor regimes—from Middle Eastern Kafala systems to East Asian domestic confinement—while identifying critical gaps in existing policy frameworks, including United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 1, 3, 8, and 10. Crucially, the research moves beyond theoretical critique by offering actionable solutions, such as the Relational Care Pathway, 24/7 virtual telehealth venting spaces, and mandatory psychosocial insurance coverage to establish formal, human-centric protections for vulnerable domestic workers worldwide.

Author: Archie Lawrence Palima Geneta (Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila)

Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1027/2157-3891/a000156