PURSUING HIGHER EDUCATION CAREERS AND THE PROCESS OF MIGRATION AMONG INDONESIAN FEMALE MIGRANT WORKERS IN TAIWAN

Abstract

Remittance, labor migration and the significance of the female role in the process of labor migration have recently become entrenched in many developing countries, such as Indonesia. The influential role these female migrant workers play in supporting their own families and in their self-fulfillment is of significance and worthy of being fully expounded and discussed. As breadwinners, these female migrant workers strive to pursue higher education by working their way through college. Qualitative in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to obtain five Indonesian female migrant workers' opinion and experiences about their experience of being a worker and a student in Taiwan. The data in this study were analyzed and evaluated with thematic analysis. This study describes the factors which cause the Indonesian female workers to become migrant workers in Taiwan. This includes getting high-paid jobs, shouldering the responsibility for supporting their own families, and pursuing self-fulfillment overseas. Besides, this study has investigated the difficulties and challenges that female Indonesian migrant workers had encountered while working and studying at the same time. On the whole, as caregivers, most of them often fail to have a flexible schedule to study due to the

Keywords: Female migrant workers, higher education, Indonesian migrant workers, labor migration, remittance