Press Release

HKBU survey affirms foreign domestic helpers' positive impact on Hong Kong families

Monday, 15 Nov 2021

A Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) study has investigated the hiring of foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) by families in Hong Kong. It is a unique study that adopts a local employers' perspective, and it looked into the factors conducive to their hiring decisions, the stability of the employment relationship, and the impact of hiring FDHs on the families that employed them.

The study, titled "A Stranger/Helper at Home: An Integrated Framework on Hiring Domestic Help and Family Relations in Hong Kong”, was conducted by a research team led by Dr Adam Cheung Ka-lok, Assistant Professor of the Department of Sociology at HKBU, and it received funding support from the Early Career Scheme of the Research Grants Council.

The research team conducted a representative household survey of married couples, and they administered face-to-face questionnaires between October 2018 and June 2019, and 25 in-depth follow-up interviews between March 2019 and March 2020. The study involved 2,003 married couples, with the age of the wife ranging from 18 to 55. 25.7% of the respondents had the experience of employing FDHs, and among them 18.5% had employed FDHs at the time of the survey.

Demand for FDHs has risen substantially over the past 40 years

A cohort analysis revealed that married couples' demand for FDHs has increased substantially in Hong Kong over the past 40 years. The proportions of respondents married in the 1980s who began to employ FDHs within one, five and ten years of their marriage were found to be 1.3%, 5% and 8%, respectively. The proportions rose substantially to 5.4%, 21% and 30% respectively for respondents who married in the 2010s.

Survey data also showed that married couples are now employing FDHs for longer periods of time. The proportions of respondents who married in the 1980s, previously employed FDHs, and had stopped hiring FDHs in the past one, five and ten years were 9%, 38% and 68%, respectively. The proportions dropped to 4%, 18% and 32% respectively for respondents who married in the 2010s.

FDHs are employed for longer, but the practice is unstable

Although FDHs are now being hired for longer, the practice remains unstable. Out of all the respondents who had employed FDHs, one-third of them had previously changed their helper. A quarter of them had replaced their helper in the first four years of their hiring history. Employers' average satisfaction score for their FDHs was only 6.16 on a scale of 1 to 10.

For respondents who are satisfied with their FDHs, and who grew up in families that had previously hired FDHs, their employment relationship with FDHs is more stable. However, the employment relationship for respondents who have more children, and an Indonesian FDH, tends to be less stable. Being economically well off, having a youngest child who is older in age, and an FDH who was recruited through personal networks were the factors associated with employers' higher satisfaction with FDHs.

Hiring decision associated with the wife's work commitments

The study categorised the factors that affect married couples' decision-making about whether they should hire or stop hiring FDHs into need-based, resource-based and willingness-based factors. Need-based factors – including the wife's and husband's engagement in full-time employment, the wife holding a professional/managerial-level job, the wife's age, having a newborn baby, and the number of children in the family – were positively associated with the decision to start hiring FDHs.

The resource-based factor of household wealth, and willingness-based factors – such as the couple's experience of growing up in a family with an FDH, the prevalence of hiring FDHs in their social circle, and the frequency of hiring FDHs by Hong Kong families – were also positively associated with the decision to start hiring FDHs.

It can be observed from the results that the decision to start employing FDHs is closely related to the wife's employment commitments and childcare needs, as well as the respondent's personal experience and perception of the practice of hiring FDHs.

Additional hours spent on childcare and managing FDHs

The study also looked into the impact of the practice of employing FDHs on families, including time allocation, satisfaction with housework, and fertility rates.

The research team focused on working married couples with at least one child who had employed FDHs. Analysis showed that this group of working fathers and mothers spent an average of 3.6 and 6.5 hours less per week respectively on housework, such as cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry and dish-washing compared to their counterparts who have not hired FDHs. It was also found that these working fathers and mothers spent an average of 2.9 and 3.4 hours more per week respectively on childcare, as compared to their counterparts without hiring FDHs; and they spent 1.7 and 3.7 hours per week respectively on managing the FDHs, including assigning tasks, providing training and performing quality control, after they had hired FDHs.

When compared with those who had not hired FDHs, it was also discovered that couples who had employed FDHs were on average 5% more satisfied with the housework arrangements, and 9% happier with the spousal input in domestic labour.

Hiring FDHs is associated with higher fertility rates

The survey data also suggests that the practice of hiring FDHs is positively associated with married couples' fertility rates. Focusing on couples married after 2000, for those with one child who had employed FDHs, six years after their first child was born there was a cumulative probability of 43.3% for giving birth to their second child, compared to 29.9% for those who had not employed FDHs. However, this situation was not observed in married couples giving birth to their third child.

"The survey has revealed that the practice of hiring FDHs has been widely adopted in Hong Kong in line with its substantial socioeconomic development, and it has had a positive impact on Hong Kong families. It gives them the flexibility to consider having a second child, increases their satisfaction with housework and thus daily family life, and it enables them to spend more time on parenting,” said Dr Adam Cheung Ka-lok.

"While the practice of employing foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong is not restricted to the upper and middle classes, households with lower incomes face more difficulties when engaging helpers, such as their live-in arrangements due to limited living space. More information about recruitment and how to handle employer-employee relations should also be available to enhance the stability of the employment. These are issues that need to be addressed at a policy level so that foreign domestic helpers can make an even better contribution to families and the society of Hong Kong as a whole,” added Dr Cheung.