Exhaustion: Migrant Mental Health, Gendered Migration and Workplace Regime

This article focuses on the mental health of female migrant
workers in Italy. The multi-method
study involved a survey
of 157 Moldovan migrant women employed in different
jobs and 30 semi-structured
interviews with Moldovan female
migrant domestic workers. Quantitative analysis demonstrated
that Moldovan domestic workers are affected
by poor mental health to a greater extent than Moldovan
women employed in other jobs, and that the factors most
associated with it were non-standard
working times and
having migrated primarily for work reasons. Qualitative
data showed how the strain resulting from demanding
schedules was intertwined with being a single female labour
migrant, whose experience was strongly marked by
the gendered dimension of transnational motherhood and
a loss of social status. The article concludes that the gendered
migration regime and the gendered workplace regime
constitute two intertwined and mutually reinforcing
determinants of health.