Work-Related Aggression in Home-Based Working Environment: Experiences of Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Abstract

Previous studies on workplace aggression and violence have limited their scope to the conventional formal workplace environment. Few have explored the possibility that an increasing number of people, especially females, who work in more informal settings may also face work-related aggression. Our research on a random sample of 2,017 migrant domestic female workers from the Philippines and Indonesia who work in Hong Kong focuses on a nonconventional workplace, the employer’s home, and examines how conditions specific to the home-based working environment are related to workers’ experiences of abuse. Findings suggest that both the working conditions (e.g., types of people served) and the workplace environment (e.g., the size of the home) are related to experiences of abusive behavior performed by employers in the domestic work setting. The findings extend our understanding of the concept of workplace and highlight new factors contributing to aggression and violence against workers when boundaries between work and home are blurred.

Keywords

Introduction

Many researchers have documented a wide range of aggressive behavior from employers such as scolding, even hitting, their employees in work-related contexts (Greenberg & Barling, 1999; Knefel & Bryant, 2004). Experiencing aggression at work can lead to negative consequences for workers such as poor work performance, poor physical and psychological well-being, lower job satisfaction, and less commitment to the organization (Barling et al., 1996; Barling, et al., 2001; Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Inness et al., 2005). As a prevalent phenomenon, it is not surprising that workplace aggression has received considerable attention in social science and management studies (Barling et al., 2009; Budd et al., 1996; LeBlanc & Kelloway, 2002). However, studies on aggressive behavior by employers focus almost entirely on the conventional formal workplace. Few acknowledge the growing number of workers, especially females, in more informal work settings (Barling et al., 2001; Kellett & Tipple, 2000). This article fills this gap in the research.

Domestic workers, who provide paid household work in the home of the employer, constitute an important part of this growing group of females who work in informal workplace environments. When working in private homes, domestic workers are exposed to a high risk of aggressive behavior by their employers, as has been documented in many qualitative case studies (Anderson, 2000; Constable, 2007; Lan, 2006; Parrenãs, 2001; Romero, 1992; Yeoh et al., 2020). It remains unclear how the unique working conditions and workplace environment lead to experiences of aggression and general patterns of aggressive behavior by employers toward migrant domestic workers.

The question is important for several reasons. First, the sheer number of domestic workers in the world heightens the significance of the home as a workplace. According to the International Labour Organization’s report released in 2015, there were 67.1 million domestic workers in the world in 2013, and 11.5 million of them were migrants. Female migrants accounted for 73.4% of this growing population of domestic workers. Such patterns contribute to the feminization of labor migration (Herrera, 2013), a growing global trend as many women from rural areas and the developing world respond to labor shortages in caregiving industries in advanced economies, especially the increasing demand for caregivers in family homes (Hochschild, 2000; Sassen, 1984; Silvey & Parreñas, 2020).

Second, the division between workplace and home is becoming blurred, as many individuals in newly emerged occupations work at home. Different home-based occupations require different understanding of the ways in which the working conditions and workplace environment are related to the employer–employee relationship. However, there is scant systematic information in this regard. The situation of domestic workers provides an ideal case for studying the consequences of working in an environment where the boundaries between workplace and home are blurred.

Third, considering the home as an occupational environment will extend and update our understanding of “workplace.” There are particular conditions that differentiate the home as workplace from the formal workplace. It is possible that the privacy and intimacy of the private home may render employees more vulnerable to aggression (Lan, 2003; Näre, 2014). Yet little is known of the ways in which the working conditions and work environments for migrant domestic workers are related to aggressive behavior by their employers. Our study takes a first step to systematically examine this issue by using large-scale data obtained from a survey of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong.

Literature Review

Qualitative studies on migrant domestic workers have reported that this group is exposed to high risk of aggressive behavior by their employers while working in the latter’s residences (Anderson, 2000; Cheng, 2003; Constable, 2007; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001; Lan, 2006; Parrenãs, 2001). However, these studies do not identify factors that might contribute to an increase in the risk of aggressive behavior by employers in a home-based workplace environment. In this study, we draw from past studies about workplace aggression and violence in formal work settings to suggest how working conditions and workplace environments that contribute to power imbalances may lead to aggressive behavior by employers in home-based workplaces (Barling et al., 2009; Budd et al., 1996; LeBlanc & Kelloway, 2002). Our discussion will take into special consideration the uniqueness of the home-based setting.

Working Conditions

Working Hours and Holidays

Compared with occupations that have fixed work schedules and overtime pay, live-in domestic workers have no such standard rules, and thus their work arrangements are largely at the discretion of the employer (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001). In this regard, migrant domestic workers may easily be caught in an unequal exchange where their employers require them to work long hours and odd times without additional compensation (Anderson, 2000; Bhattacharya, 2017). Studies have documented this exploitative relationship in cases where migrant domestic workers endured long working hours and were overburdened with tasks, and not even allowed time off for holidays (Anderson, 2000; Constable, 2007; Lan, 2006; Romero, 1992). Workers under such conditions are vulnerable and subject to aggressive behavior from employers. They can easily develop high levels of stress, which can lead to poor concentration or fatigue and negative job performance. Their poor performance, in turn, may make them more vulnerable to aggressive behavior of the employers (Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Budd et al., 1996; Knefel & Bryant, 2004; LeBlanc & Kelloway, 2002; Skogstad et al., 2011). Therefore, we hypothesize for migrant workers under exploitative working environment as follows:

Hypothesis 1: Migrant domestic workers who work longer hours, earn lower wages, or are denied holidays are more likely to experience aggressive behavior from their employers.

Caregiving

In the Asian context, migrant domestic workers are often employed to take care of children, the elderly, the sick, or other family members in need of care (Constable, 2009; Lan, 2006; Parrenãs, 2001). Caregiving is complex and stressful because it is both physically and emotionally demanding, especially when caring for a newborn baby, a frail elderly person, or a sick patient. The caregiving duty involves a range of tasks, from feeding and bathing, to taking care of incontinence and changing diapers, to taking walks with babies in strollers or elderly in wheelchairs.

However, the work is characterized by a lack of clarity and certainty about the required tasks and standards. Migrant domestic workers, especially those from another culture, can easily fail to align their performance with their employers’ expectations, which in turn may trigger verbal and physical abuse from the employers (Huang & Yeoh, 2007; Samnani & Singh, 2016). Studies have found that migrant domestic workers are often blamed for out-of-date methods and skills, especially with regard to care for newly born child, elderly, or disabled, in which nursing skills are required to provide competent care (Huang & Yeoh, 2007; Lan, 2006). To look after the diet and medication of people who are physically or mentally infirm, workers should receive specific training. Yet, in many cases, the professional training of caregivers is limited. Then they may be blamed because they lack the comprehensive skills necessary to provide appropriate care (Yeoh & Huang, 2009). In some situations, domestic workers are accused of underperforming in their assigned care duties. Such accusations sometimes reflect the ambiguous standards of the work. In fact, as Anderson (2000) has pointed out, the contradictions and tensions involved in paying for care result from the fact that real care cannot be explicitly commodified. Unachievable expectations from the employer will lead to uncertainties and anxieties for the employee (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001).

Given that migrant domestic workers may experience multiple pressures to take care of different people at the same time (Huang & Yeoh, 2007), the number of people in the care of domestic workers is a factor in the likelihood of aggressive behavior from employers. In these cases, workers tend to endure more stressful work with uncertain standards and goals and more conflicts in the family, which exposes them to greater risk of victimization.

Thus, we hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 2: Migrant domestic workers who care for more people with special needs are more likely to experience aggressive behavior from employers.

Workplace Environment

Having Own Room

The workplace of migrant domestic workers is also the private home of their employers. According to employment law and immigration policy in many countries, a migrant domestic worker is required to live in the employer’s household. If the living space is small, which is very common in Asian countries, the domestic worker does not have their own private room. In such cases, they are less able to retreat from work to rest in their own private space. This situation means they are trapped in a working mode 24 hours a day (Lan, 2003). In addition, working in a compact residence can result in more unwanted contact and interaction with others, which can lead to aggressive behavior from employers (Constable, 2007; Dupré & Barling, 2006; Glomb, 2002; Glomb & Liao, 2003; Knefel & Bryant, 2004; Näre, 2014). We hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 3: Migrant domestic workers who do not have their own room and work in a home of smaller size are more likely to suffer from aggression by their employers.

Housing Context

The live-in arrangement endorsed by most governments keeps migrant domestic workers invisible from the larger society and isolated from their co-ethnic community (Huang & Yeoh, 2007; Lutz, 2011; Näre, 2014; Yeoh & Huang, 1999). Within the confines of the private home, migrant domestic workers who experience aggressive behavior from employers may not be detected for a long time (Yeoh & Huang, 2009). Studies in formal workplaces show that a work climate with poor protection and support for workers tends to provoke aggressive acts by employers, since the target is viewed as safe by the potential perpetrator (Glomb, 2002; Glomb & Liao, 2003; Samnani & Singh, 2016). Live-in domestic workers, to some extent, become “safe targets” because they are “trapped” in a secured household away from the public gaze and are forced to rely on their own resources to stave off aggressive behavior from employers, which enhances their vulnerability to abuse (Barling et al., 2001; Hanson et al., 2015; Lan, 2006; Yeoh et al., 2020). In fact, many cases of abuse by employers are not reported to authorities by the victims themselves, but by neighbors (Yeoh & Huang, 2009). Surveillance by neighbors may mitigate the vulnerability of migrant domestic workers in the private sphere.

Migrant domestic workers who work in households living in private housing in Hong Kong may have better protection compared with those in public or subsidized housing.¹ More migrant domestic workers are hired for households that are in private housing because these households have greater economic resources. With more migrant domestic workers working nearby, they have more opportunities to share grievances and to know how others are doing. In addition, household heads in private housing may have higher levels of education and know more about labor rights. They may be more aware of what should not be done in labor relations, which constitutes an external surveillance on potentially abusive employers. Therefore, we hypothesis as follows:

Hypothesis 4: Migrant domestic workers working for households living in private housing are less likely to experience negative behavior.

Different Forms of Aggressive Behavior From Employers

Aggressive behavior from employers can take different forms, to include verbal threats, psychological abuse, and physical assaults (Knefel & Bryant, 2004). Scolding, neglect, and hitting are three common aggressive behavior by employers found in the workplace (Knefel & Bryant, 2004; O’Reilly et al., 2014).

Scolding, a verbal expression of anger, usually is a reaction by an employer toward an employee who is not meeting the expectations (Mawritz et al., 2012). In the domestic work environment, scolding may occur for other reasons as well. An employer may vent their frustration about their own job situation toward the migrant domestic worker at home (Gelles & Straus, 1979). Scolding in a domestic setting may also be an expression of power over the migrant domestic worker (Lan, 2006; Yeoh & Huang, 2009).

Neglect occurs when individual employees perceive themselves to be ignored in the workplace (Neuman & Baron, 1998). Being neglected by employers is a form of psychological abuse and has negative impacts on employee’s emotional and psychological state (Ferris et al., 2008). Recent studies suggested that workplace ostracism and its consequences are more serious than bullying in the workplace. Neglect can occur intentionally or unintentionally. Migrant domestic workers feel ignored when they are disrespected or when their needs are not acknowledged (Constable, 2007).

Finally, hitting is a common form of physical assaults, which are less prevalent in the workplace and have more severe and injurious effects compared with nonphysical aggressive behavior (Greenberg & Barling, 1999; LeBlanc & Kelloway, 2002). In the domestic work environment, hitting employees suggests employers have hostility toward migrant domestic workers (Constable, 2007).

We expect different working conditions and workplace environments to be strongly related to different aggressive behavior. We suggest that at least three possible working conditions are related to different forms of aggressive behavior from employers. First is the care of the sick, elderly, or disabled. The domestic worker is often asked to stay in the same room with a sick or elderly person who has limited physical mobility in order to provide assistance whenever needed (Lan, 2006). Staying in a confined room for a long time, the caregiver may not have much opportunity to interact with people outside the room and can easily feel isolated and neglected by the rest of the family.

Second, when care service is provided by migrant domestic workers, their employers, especially the mothers, are released from the burden of caregiving (Anderson, 2000; Herrera, 2013). However, conflicts may emerge between family members and the domestic workers. When domestic workers caring for children perform their job very well, they may still experience hostility from their employers as the female employer, the mother of the children, may become jealous of her children’s attachment to the domestic worker (Chan, 2005; Constable, 2007). The female employer may feel that her position in the family is being undermined and her role as mother is being threatened. She may scold the migrant domestic worker more often to show that she is still in charge.

Third, when employers have precedent records of violating rules and guidelines to supervise migrant domestic workers, such as not paying salary, they may have a greater tendency to hit their employees.

In sum, we hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 5: Migrant domestic workers who take care of sick, disabled, or elderly people are more likely to feel neglected by their employers.

Hypothesis 6: Migrant domestic workers who take care of children are more likely to be scolded by their employers.

Hypothesis 7: Migrant domestic workers who work longer hours, earn lower wages, not receiving salary before, or are denied holidays are more likely to be hit by their employers.

Data and Method

Data used in this study are from a survey conducted from 2016 to 2017 to understand the social, psychological, and physical well-being of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. A random sample of 2,017 migrant domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia was selected during their gathering on Saturdays and Sundays at different parts in Hong Kong. They were given an anonymous standardized questionnaire, and face-to-face interviews were conducted. Details of the data collection can be found in the article by Chung et al. (2020) in this special issue.

In the survey, respondents were asked to indicate the frequency with which they had been scolded, neglected, or hit by their employer in the past 12 months. The response codes were 1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes or often. The answers to these questions constitute the three dependent variables in our study. The variable hit by your employer was recoded as a binary variable with no (= 0) and yes (= 1) because the number of respondents choosing seldom or sometimes or often was relatively small.

The two major sets of independent variables are related to the working conditions and workplace environment of live-in domestic work.

“Working hours,” “experience of holiday denial,” “monthly salary,” and “experience of not receiving salary” are included to highlight the working conditions of migrant domestic workers. We expect that migrant domestic workers who have worked long hours, have been denied holidays, have lower salary, or have not received salary in the past are more likely to experience negative behavior from their employers. The worker’s engagement in care work is measured by the “number of people needing special care.”² We also include types of people receiving care: “taking care of children” and “taking care of sick/disabled/elderly.” As discussed above, we suggest that migrant domestic workers who provide care to more people in the household, take care of children, or take care of sick/disabled/elderly people are more likely to be exposed to aggressive behavior from their employers.

To capture different aspects of the home-based work environment, factors included are “the size of the flat,” “having own private room or not,” and “housing type.” We suggest that migrant domestic workers employed in places that are small in size, where they do not have their own private space, or that are in public or subsidized housing are more likely to experience aggressive behavior from their employers.

We also control for sociodemographic background of migrant domestic workers: age, nationality, education, language ability, length of stay in Hong Kong, and whether they attended religious activity during their holidays.

Results

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for all variables included in the analysis. They show an alarming pattern that aggressive behavior from employers in home-based work settings is not uncommon for the migrant domestic workers interviewed in the Hong Kong study. Experiences of verbal aggression (scolding) and neglect by the employer are undesirably high among respondents: 10.7% and 16.6%, respectively, were seldom or sometimes or often scolded by their employers over the previous 12 months, and 7.5% and 7.6%, respectively, were seldom or sometimes or often neglected by their employers. Although few reported suffering from physical violence, 3.8% of them experienced being hit by their employers in the past year. Given government records that Hong Kong had about 364,000 migrant domestic workers in 2017, the estimated number that may have experienced physical violence could reach about 14,000 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2018b)!

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of All Variables in the Final Sample (N = 1,750).

Variable	M	SD	Range
Dependent variables
Being scolded by employers
Never	0.727
Seldom	0.107
Sometimes or often	0.166
Being neglected by employers
Never	0.849
Seldom	0.075
Sometimes or often	0.076
Being hit by employers (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.038	0.191	0-1
Working conditions
Working hours	14.019	2.417	4-24
Experience of holiday denial (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.339	0.473	0-1
Monthly salary	4272.212	184.216	3,000-7,000
Experience of not receiving salary (yes =1, no =0)	0.075	0.264	0-1
Number of people to whom special care is provided	0.780	0.837	0-11
Taking care of children (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.532	0.499	0-1
Taking care of sick, disabled, or elderly (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.189	0.392	0-1
Workplace environment
Flat size in square feet
<599	0.175
600-799	0.294
800-999	0.243
>1,000	0.289
Having own private room (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.561	0.496	0-1
Housing type
Public rental or subsidized housing	0.209
Private housing	0.791
Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents
Age	35.817	7.336	20-72
Nationality
The Philippines	0.679
Indonesia	0.321
Education
Primary school or less	0.040
Secondary or vocational	0.611
Postsecondary technical	0.106
University or above	0.243
Ability to speak English (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.978	0.146	0-1
Ability to speak Cantonese (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.808	0.394	0-1
Attending religious activities during holidays (yes = 1, no = 0)	0.541	0.498	0-1
Length of stay in Hong Kong	3.826	5.968	0-36

Source. 2016-2017 Hong Kong Domestic Workers Survey.

In terms of working conditions, migrant domestic workers worked on average about 14 hours a day, and a high percentage (33.9%) reported holidays being denied in the past. Their salary on average was about HK$4272.2 per month, which was substantially lower than the average monthly salary in Hong Kong of HK$16,800 in 2017 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2018a). Even worse, about 7.5% of the workers reported incidents in the past of not receiving their salary on time from their employer.

On average, most migrant domestic workers provided special care for 0.780 person (i.e., about one person) in the household. More specifically, about 53.2% took care of children, and 18.9% looked after sick, disabled, or elderly people. As mentioned earlier, these caregiving services can be psychologically draining.

The percentages of respondents working and living in a flat of less than 599 square feet, between 600 and 799 square feet, between 800 and 999 square feet, and 1,000 square feet or more were 17.5%, 29.4%, 24.3%, and 28.9%, respectively. Given the high cost of housing, the average house in Hong Kong was about 431 square feet in 2016 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2017). The size of the homes of those who employ migrant domestic workers is considered to be larger than average. The larger size of these homes reflects the finding that more than half of the respondents (56.1%) had their own private room. Most of them (79.1%) were living in private housing.

The average age of the respondents was 35.8 years old. More than half of them (67.9%) were from the Philippines and 32.1% were from Indonesia. Nearly all respondents (96.0%) reported having at least secondary or vocational education. About 98.0% of them could speak English and 80.8% could speak Cantonese. More than half of them (about 54.1%) attended religious activities during their holidays. Most of them had not been in Hong Kong for a long time, on average 3.8 years.

Table 2 shows the results of multinominal logit regression models on the likelihood of being scolded. The ordinal logit regression was not used for this case as the proportion odds assumption is violated. Four models are reported. The first model includes only working conditions and workplace environment. The second model adds the socioeconomic background of respondents. The third model includes only working conditions and workplace environment, but differentiates the types of people receiving care, that is, whether children or sick/disabled/elderly. The last model includes the types of people receiving care and the socioeconomic background of the respondents.

Table 2.

Odd Ratios of Multinominal Logit Regression on Being Scolded by Employers.

Variable	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never
Working conditions
Working hours	1.006	1.062**	1.007	1.090***	1.002	1.054*	1.003	1.080***
Experience of holiday denial	1.099	2.704***	1.123	2.463***	1.022	2.339***	1.054	2.220***
Monthly salary	1.000	0.999**	0.999	0.999**	0.999	0.999**	0.999	0.999**
Experience of not receiving salary	0.702	1.121	0.968	1.457	0.701	1.100	0.946	1.401
Number of people to whom special care is provided	1.055	0.970	1.023	1.009
Taking care of children					1.439**	1.940***	1.333	1.709***
Taking care of sick, disabled, or elderly					0.874	1.043	1.031	1.165
Workplace environment
Flat size in square feet (<599)
600-799	1.118	0.797	1.169	0.802	1.087	0.766	1.144	0.780
800-999	0.856	0.637**	0.889	0.605**	0.825	0.610**	0.873	0.598**
>1,000	1.502	1.285	1.720**	1.253	1.479	1.259	1.706*	1.250
Having own private room	0.991	0.979	0.980	1.006	1.061	1.113	1.026	1.100
Housing type (public rental or subsidized housing)
Private housing	0.940	1.102	1.059	1.161	0.943	1.134	1.072	1.179
Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents
Age			1.121	0.968			1.117	0.961
Age²			0.998	1.000			0.998	1.000
Nationality (the Philippines)
Indonesia			0.376***	0.580***			0.386***	0.610***
Education (primary school or less)
Secondary or vocational			0.302***	0.657			0.297***	0.638
Postsecondary technical			0.417**	0.547			0.413**	0.540
University or above			0.550	0.913			0.531	0.872
Ability to speak English			1.609	2.660			1.512	2.269
Ability to speak Cantonese			0.842	0.905			0.846	0.905
Attending religious activities during holidays			0.420***	1.593***			0.414***	1.579***
Length of stay in Hong Kong			0.947	1.063*			0.945	1.061*
(Length of stay in Hong Kong)²			1.003	0.997*			1.003*	0.997*
Constant	0.956	4.540	0.586	4.123	1.177	5.403	0.729	6.127
Number of observation	1,750		1,750		1,750		1,750
Pseudo R²	0.036		0.082		0.045		0.087
Log pseudo likelihood	−1295.708		−1234.624		−1284.245		−1227.721
χ²(df)	97.73 (20)		219.90 (42)		120.65 (22)		233.70 (44)

Source. 2016-2017 Hong Kong Domestic Workers Survey.

p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

In general, there is no difference between the probability of never being scolded and seldom being scolded. However, there is a clear difference between the probability of never being scolded and sometimes/often being scolded. The findings show that both working conditions and workplace environment are related to the likelihood of being sometimes/often scolded. Working longer hours, being denied holidays, and lower salary are related to the likelihood of being sometimes/often scolded. These findings are consistent even when we control for socioeconomic background of respondents or specify types of people receiving care. In addition, when the model includes specific types of people receiving care, findings suggest that workers who take care of children are more likely to be sometimes/often scolded. This may reflect that parents are paying close attention to the well-being of their children or that there are tensions in the relationship between the mother and the migrant domestic worker.

With regard to workplace environment, only housing size is related to the likelihood of being scolded. Result do not show significant relationship between workers having their own room or living in nonpublic housing with the likelihood of being scolded.

Table 3 reports the multinominal logit regression model on migrant domestic workers feeling neglected by employers. The setup of the analysis is the same as that of Table 2. Results still show that both working conditions and workplace environment are related to likelihood of being neglected sometimes/often. However, neither working long hours nor salary level are related to the likelihood of being ignored. Only the experience of holiday being denied is significantly and positively related to feeling neglected. Taking care of those who are children, sick, disabled, or elderly is related to the level of feeling neglected. However, the level of neglect they feel differs by the group of people they take care. Those who take care of children are less likely to feel sometimes/often neglected than others, but those who take care of the sick, disabled, or elderly are more likely to feel neglected.

Table 3.

Results of Multinominal Logit Regression on Being Neglected by Employers.

Variable	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never	Seldom vs. never	Sometimes or often vs. never
Working conditions
Working hours	1.079*	1.017	1.073	1.037	1.082**	1.011	1.080*	1.035
Experience of holiday denial	0.646**	3.500***	0.641**	3.247***	0.703	3.132***	0.706	2.994***
Monthly salary	1.000	0.999	1.000	0.999	1.000	0.999	1.000	0.999
Experience of not receiving salary	1.282	0.894	1.421	1.183	1.294	0.887	1.514	1.147
Number of people to whom special care is provided	0.860	0.987	0.830	1.023
Taking care of children					0.631**	1.643**	0.590***	1.402
Taking care of sick, disabled, or elderly					0.848	1.430	1.001	1.678**
Workplace environment
Flat size in square feet (<599)
600-799	1.659*	0.665	1.629	0.659	1.768*	0.649	1.778*	0.650
800-999	1.158	0.525**	1.171	0.490**	1.224	0.521**	1.278	0.500**
>1,000	1.383	1.330	1.450	1.291	1.428	1.308	1.526	1.306
Having own private room	1.192	0.682*	1.229	0.692*	1.134	0.736	1.163	0.708
Housing type (public rental or subsidized housing)
Private housing	0.833	0.704	0.928	0.754	0.841	0.716	0.941	0.753
Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents
Age			1.370**	0.990			1.377**	0.989
Age²			0.996**	1.000			0.996**	1.000
Nationality (the Philippines)
Indonesia			0.685	0.437***			0.642*	0.430***
Education (primary school or less)
Secondary or vocational			0.720	0.685			0.762	0.678
Postsecondary technical			1.002	0.503			1.057	0.513
University or above			1.072	0.921			1.172	0.915
Ability to speak English			1.256	0.924			1.384	0.855
Ability to speak Cantonese			0.768	0.985			0.742	0.962
Attending religious activities during holidays			0.518***	1.432*			0.541***	1.439*
Length of stay in Hong Kong			0.873***	1.050			0.876***	1.044
(Length of stay in Hong Kong)²			1.006***	0.997			1.006***	0.997

Constant	0.134	1.932	0.001*	5.759	0.125	1.692	0.001*	4.646
Number of observation	1,750		1,750		1,750		1,750
Pseudo R²	0.049		0.083		0.055		0.089
Log pseudo likelihood	−880.259		−848.602		−874.430		−842.965
χ² (df)	90.12 (20)		153.44 (42)		101.78 (22)		164.71 (44)

Source. 2016-2017 Hong Kong Domestic Workers Survey.

p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

At the same time, similar to the experience of being scolded, a larger home, specifically a home of about 800 to 999 square feet, reduces the likelihood of being neglected. Workers who have their own room are less likely to feel neglected. Migrant domestic workers may feel that their needs are acknowledged when their employers create a private room for them despite the small living space.

The set of analyses reported in Table 4, similar to the setup of the previous set, explores how working conditions and workplace environment are related to likelihood of being hit. We combined “seldom,” “sometimes or often,” and “never” as “yes” because the small number of the last two categories. The findings show that only working conditions are related to likelihood of being hit. Migrant domestic workers who experience holiday denial and at times have not received their regular salary are more likely to be hit by their employers. Working longer hours, however, reduces the likelihood of being hit. Furthermore, the workplace environment does not relate to the likelihood of being hit.

Table 4.

Results of Logit Regression on Being Hit by Employers.

Variable	Yes vs. no	Yes vs. no	Yes vs. no	Yes vs. no
Working conditions
Working hours	0.860***	0.852***	0.856***	0.848***
Experience of holiday denial	1.951**	2.038***	1.901**	1.968**
Monthly salary	0.999	0.999	0.999	0.999
Experience of not receiving salary	2.293**	2.202**	2.225**	2.164**
Number of people to whom special care is provided	0.830	0.814
Taking care of children			1.045	1.076
Taking care of sick, disabled, or Elderly			1.074	1.083
Workplace environment
Flat size in square feet (<599)
600-799	0.625	0.614	0.644	0.634
800-999	0.756	0.716	0.781	0.741
>1,000	0.988	0.955	0.997	0.966
Having own private room	1.096	1.083	1.122	1.118
Housing type (public rental or subsidized housing)
Private housing	0.637	0.683	0.665	0.717
Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents
Age		1.019		1.012
Age²		1.000		1.000
Citizenship (the Philippines)
Indonesia		0.822		0.822
Education (primary school or less)
Secondary or vocational		0.547		0.546
Postsecondary technical		0.739		0.750
University or above		0.457		0.460
Ability to speak English		1.370		1.377
Ability to speak Cantonese		1.295		1.254
Attending religious activities during holidays		0.794		0.805
Length of stay in Hong Kong		0.985		0.985
(Length of stay in Hong Kong)²		1.000		1.000

Constant	102.497	111.945	74.121	91.525
Number of observation	1,750	1,750	1,750	1,750
Pseudo R²	0.050	0.056	0.047	0.055
Log pseudo likelihood	−267.109	−264.964	−267.755	−265.709
χ²(df)	27.92 (10)	32.21 (21)	26.63 (11)	30.72 (22)

Source. 2016-2017 Hong Kong Domestic Workers Survey.

p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

To check the robustness of our analysis, which uses the listwise deletion to handle missing data, we also adopted the multiple imputation approach to impute missing values for variables with more than 2% missing values, that is, “housing type” and “length of stay in Hong Kong.” The results are consistent with those of the analysis based on listwise deletion, and the conclusions of this study remain unaffected.

Conclusion

This article is one of the first studies of aggressive behavior by employers toward migrant domestic workers at their workplace in Hong Kong. Our estimate is based on large-scale survey data collected in Hong Kong about Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers in 2016-2017. The quantitative analysis shows the value of identifying specific patterns in the relationship. Our analysis of experiences of being scolded, neglected, and hit show that both working conditions and workplace environment (except in relation to hitting) are related to all three types of aggressive behavior by employers.

However, we found that not all working conditions and workplace environments analyzed are related to all three types of aggressive behavior. The major findings suggest that some working conditions, specifically working hours and denial of holidays, and some workplace environments, specifically domestic workers having their own room and size of flat, are related to aggressive behavior by employers. (Hypothesis 1 is supported and Hypothesis 3 is partially supported.) However, the number of people requiring special care by workers is not is related to any type of aggressive behavior by employers, and residing in private housing is not a significant factor. (Hypotheses 2 and 4 are not supported.)

Our study also found that caring for specific groups of people is related to the likelihood of different aggressive behavior by employers. Migrant domestic workers who take care of sick, disabled, or elderly people are more likely to feel ignored by their employers. (Hypothesis 5 is supported.) Those who take care of children are more likely to be scolded by their employers. (Hypothesis 6 is supported.) While those are denied holidays or have experience of not receiving salary are more likely hit by their employers. (Hypothesis 7 is partially supported.)

Our study has important implications. First, both working conditions and workplace environment are related to aggressive behavior by employers toward migrant domestic workers, except that workplace environment does not relate to the experience of workers being hit by employers. As most migrant domestic workers are more likely to experience scolding and neglect, the understanding of the experience of aggressive behavior by employers toward migrant domestic workers should take both factors into consideration. Though our study has pointed out the importance of both factors, the relationship of the interaction of the factors to aggressive behavior by employers of migrant domestic workers requires further investigation. It is possible that migrant domestic workers working in a poorer working environment and conditions may experience much more aggressive behavior by employers.

Second, the findings show that different working conditions are strongly associated with different forms of aggressive behavior by employers. Our findings show the complexity of this relationship and provide a preliminary understanding of the patterns. Future studies should develop deeper analysis of the ways in which specific working conditions are related to different forms of aggressive behavior. For example, job stress can be one of the mechanisms contributing to the relationship between working hours and being scolded by employers (Barling et al., 1996).

Third, our findings show that although workplace environment is related to aggressive behavior by employers toward migrant domestic workers, some of the factors related to workplace environment that are included in the analysis do not relate to any form of aggressive behavior by employers. This pattern may reflect the relatively small size of all Hong Kong housing, so the variation is minimal, even though our analysis included different sizes of housing, whether or not workers had their own room, and whether they were living in public housing. The effect of differences in these variables may be minimal in the specific case of Hong Kong. However, in some other locations, such as Singapore and Taiwan, with greater variation in housing space, the findings may be different.

Our study also has a few limitations. First, our respondents were interviewed at their gathering locations on Saturdays and Sundays in Hong Kong. As those who were denied taking weekend break were not interviewed, the outcome of our analysis may provide a more optimistic picture than the reality. Second, the experience of experiencing aggressive behavior of the employer is self-reported. Though the survey asks as specific questions as possible, the experience depends on the interpretation by respondents.

In short, our study provides a systematic investigation of how specific working conditions and workplace environments are related to negative experiences of migrant domestic workers. Our article takes the first step to explore the relationship. However, the data are based on only one city. Further study should extend the study to other places. In addition, although it is an important step forward, the study shows that further theorization and empirical exploration are needed. Future research should study the interaction of working conditions and workplace environments and their relationship to aggressive behavior by employers. Aggressive behavior by employers can have serious negative impact on employees. At the same time, the unique workplace environment of domestic workers demands proper understanding of its relationship to aggressive behavior by employers. As more females are involved in domestic work, the topic is critically important to ensure the well-being of this group of workers. Our study shows the way toward systematic study of the group.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Eric Fong is now affilated with The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong SAR.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The funding for collecting the survey data on Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong came from the Research Centre on Migration and Mobility at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Notes

Author Biographies

Yingtong Lai is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include migration and immigration, urban sociology, work and inequalities.

Eric Fong is Chair Professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. He is also the leader of the Research Cluster on Contemporary China at the Faculty of Social Sciences, the University of Hong Kong. He publishes widely in the area of immigration and race and ethnic relations.

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