ABSTRACT
This chapter brings together the main findings of the study and discusses their implications for policy action and further research on the situation of FODWs. I firstly outline the study’s framework for conceptualizing and evaluating capability in FODW agency. I term this framework a “capable agency approach (CAA).” I then show how this approach is useful in policy implementation at three related levels: the FODW institution level, the level of the individual FODW in the FODW institution, and the level of the individual out of the FODW institution. I discuss these policy implications within the other main institutional components of the FODW structural complex: immigration policies, host country domestic work labour policies and development policies. The discussion then turns to looking at how the present study’s contributions can provide some key directions for future research. Finally, I conclude that a CAA is important in unsettling the current polarized views and policy actions on migrant domestic workers’ oppression, which has been unsuccessful in meeting their needs not only for empowerment but also for sustainable livelihoods. In particular, I show how the CAA can advance these current views by discussing the reconciliation of rights with livelihoods through an assertion of capability as not only the theoretical but also the political goal for migrant domestic worker empowerment.
