Methodological Implications of Studying Migrant Philippine Educated Nurses working as Live-in Caregivers in Canada

The Live-in Caregiver Program is a Canadian temporary immigration program that allows qualified individuals to migrate to Canada to provide care to the elderly, children or the disabled, while living in the client’s home. Live-in caregivers qualify to become permanent residents in Canada after a minimum of 3900 hours of work. This paper reports on the first data collection phase of a doctoral study that explores the experiences of internationally educated nurses who migrate to Ontario through the Live-in Caregiver Program. The study was primarily guided by the transnational feminist concept of Global Care Chain. Coined by Sociologist Arlie Hochschild, the concept of Global Care Chains illustrates personal links across the globe based on the paid and unpaid work of caring. Taking a single case study methodological approach, thirteen Philippine educated nurses who migrated to Ontario through the Live-in Caregiver Program were interviewed for this study. The majority of participants were temporary migrants in Canada who were seeking permanent resident status at the time of the interview. The process of data collection revealed the perceived vulnerability of this population due to their status as non-citizens and their responses evoked a new definition of reflexivity and positionality for the researcher as a Canadian educated African immigrant nurse conducting a research study on Philippine migrant workers. Methodological implications of conducting a study on migrant workers seeking citizenship status in Canada will be discussed as well as issues of reflexivity and positionality as an African immigrant crossing racial and cultural boundaries in the data collection process.