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TSVC | Tourism Students Virtual Conference

‘’Migrant Woman Labor in Tourism Employability in the United Kingdom’’

‘’Migrant Woman Labor in Tourism Employability in the United Kingdom’’
Author: Renata Vitaite
1 Commentries
Every year thousands of people migrate away from their home for a better and brighter future, however in the discussion of conference paper it has clearly stated that women do not always find happiness when they migrate. The facts are that have been proven are by Wood, Braeken, Niven (2013) and these three authors have stated that discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on membership of a certain group or category, is likely to have negative effects on its victims’ well-being and health. This equally proves the point that there are facts that health dose get affected and may lead to a more serious health issues. This proves that by leaving your own country and migrating to another shows that your health and your life can be at risk at some point. Especially when you have children and family with you it is very difficult to work in this type of environment. Defined notion against certain categories, such as single mothers, wives, widows and homosexuals, can also act as a push factor, in any industry, including tourism workforce as well.
The governments of United Kingdom tend to overlook and ignore migrant women who travel to the country for the reasons of employability, consequently, the migrant women are likely to be put at risk of exploitation and abuse. This is due to low level of English and hardly understanding the rights, which they can use to protect themselves.
In the year of 2012 25% of migrant female were in a position of a professional female workers, taking position where a higher education is required. The migrant women who just migrate to United Kingdom do not have an education or skills to work in a higher role jobs, which leads to a point that the managerial positions are hard to get for the reason that most migrant women have lack of English language skills. However this then leads on to exploitation of cheap labour, and giving the longer hours and harder jobs to do as this makes them think that these people will have nothing to say and they need money. This is the only way they can manipulate women workers is by stating if they don’t do the job they will get fired.
The fact proved in this conference paper is that women do make up the majority of the tourism workforce as well as most women tend to be concentrated on the lowest status jobs in tourism, which then leads to a conclusion of women being exploited and putting them into cheaper labour and giving harder jobs, as managerial knows that these women have family and children to support, which then makes this to be more harsh on the woman’s jobs.
According GOV (2013) source which tells that girls and women are also speaking up loudly and clearly that their priority is jobs and also taking control of their lives through education and getting skills. Defining the fact regarding UKfeminista (2014) the estimated approximate number of 70% of people in national minimum wage jobs are women, including migrant women as well. This fact just proves that women will work in any force just to earn money and make her family survive, which lead into low aid jobs and long hours, as well as difficulties occur to learn English and study for a future career.
The main key point for migrant women is that they have a lack of education and knowledge to build up their career in United Kingdom which stops them from receiving managerial jobs and highly educated roles. This also affects their future as they have nothing to look forward or to work for in the next level of career.
To this day in many countries migrant people in a meaning of employability are compared to ‘’slaves’’ and indentured servants and women are often positioned in a transnational labour, their gender is usually utilized as a tool to control female workers, both on and off job sites, as well as in a job labour women are usually presented as their work is normally presented in the ‘’kitchen’’, which shows that women rights are not equal in accordance to workforce. This just proves that for a migrant woman is harder to have a future or a career which will make her family more sophisticated. Therefore it is very hard to raise children into a more educated world.

GOV (2013) A new focus on girls and women’s rights. [online] Available from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/a-new-focus-on-girls-and-womens-rights [Accessed 25 April 2014]

UKfeminista (2014) Facts and statistics on gender inequality. [online] Available from http://ukfeminista.org.uk/take-action/facts-and-statistics-on-gender-inequality/ [Accessed 17 April 2014]

Wood, S., Braeken, J., Niven, K. (2013) Discrimination and Well-Being in Organisations: Testing the Differential Power and Organizational Justice Theories of Workplace Aggression. Journal of Business Ethics, 115(3)617-634.
Evaluating-Women Migration in Tourism Jobs
Author: Romy Sullivan
The conference paper discusses the thousands of women who migrate every year and the argument states that there are many negative effects with moving to different countries and migration work is very hard for women. Research of the paper focuses on the many risks that can come with migrating to another country, such as; exploitation, abuse and health issues. Migration workers come to these different countries to get various jobs, but due to their lack of education or lack of understanding the language; it is hard for them to get higher job roles. Often they don’t have the rights to have a say in different situations and these workers are made to work a lot of hours for very little money, often without contracts too. Research shows in the paper that women often feel manipulated by the managers of the different jobs, simply because the managers know how much they need the money and they feel they can be cruel to them simply because they will put up with it. Most migrant people are women and it has been proved that mostly females take up tourism jobs; which is maybe why so many women are exploited.

The writing gives a good understanding of the topic; ‘migrant workers in tourism employment’ and shows an overview of the many problems migrant workers face in different countries. The references used are good at showing different statistics to prove various points in the research and backs up arguments that women have most of tourism jobs, whether it be the lower end (cleaning jobs) or the higher end (front of house staff). It shows a clear message to the reader that the life of a migrant worker is very hard and most of the time is not fair and will stay that way until these workers fully understand their rights. The writer used words such as ‘slave’ to add effect which definitely works and makes the reader feel just how much work is put into their lives so they can support their families.

Overall, the conference paper is well structured with a good argument in place to be researched. It shows a clear understanding of the life of a migrant worker and gives lots of examples to support arguments. Further improvements could be made in building a conclusion to the research without stating what the reader already knows. On a whole, it was a pleasure to read through and gain a better understanding of the world of women migrant workers.


(Romy Sullivan)