Competently Incompetent: Employers' Perceptions of Migrant Domestic Workers' Human-Cultural Capital in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong's migrant domestic worker (MDW) system has operated for over 50 years and has been the subject of extensive scholarship. However, how power is negotiated within MDW-employer relationships, particularly through employers' evaluations of workers' skills, remains underexamined. While existing studies suggest that certain forms of capital can empower MDWs to negotiate better treatment, employers' perspectives are underexplored. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 14 employers, this study examines how employers evaluate MDWs' human-cultural capital, with particular attention to linguistic competence and prior work experience. The findings show that strong linguistic competence and local experience are not always valued and may even be viewed as liabilities. The results offer a nuanced account of employer expectations, demonstrating how capital is selectively recognised and devalued to strategically preserve control in households. Although based solely on employers' perspectives, the study provides empirical insight into employer logics and lays the groundwork for future triangulated research.