The "New Aristocrats:" Filipino Nurses, Cultural Capital, and the Nurse Shortage

Anna Romina Guevarra

ASA 2006

The “New Aristocrats:”

Filipino nurses, cultural capital, and the nurse shortage

It’s in Filipinos’ nature not to offend their employers as much as possible. In a way, I guess they do take advantage
but that is work. You came here for the work.

(Pia, a newly recruited nurse from the Philippines).

My charge nurse would say that there are so many nurses here who are resistant and that I am good to work with
because I am easy to talk to and that I am obedient…I’m open to challenges and I do not resist. How can I learn if I
resist the things that they give me? This is how I learn. And I want to learn. I want to be like them. I want to be
good like them.

(Michelle, a 38-year old newly recruited nurse from the Philippines)

The Philippines’ labor export economy and the subsequent demands for various types of

labor have contributed to an overwhelming number of Filipino workers who are now situated in

over 200 nations. In 2001 alone, the Commission of Filipinos Overseas (CFO) indicated that in

2001 alone, an estimated 10% of its population resides overseas, of which approximately three

million represented contract workers. Of particular interest is that the country’s labor export

program rests on the backs of Filipinas who comprised a significant portion of the country’s

yearly overseas deployment. For instance, in 2001 alone, the Philippine Overseas Employment

Administration (POEA) reported that of the newly hired workers, 72% comprised of women, of

which domestic workers and nurses constituted the top female workforce deployment. The

culture of labor migration that has developed in the country is a product of a highly

institutionalized and coordinated partnership between the Philippine state and its state licensed

employment agencies, which facilitate the country’s labor export policy and positions the

Philippines as the much touted “Home of the Great Filipino Worker” and Filipinos as “ideal”

labor resources (Guevarra 2003; Guevarra 2004). My ethnographic study (2003; 2004) of labor

brokers, the employment agencies marketing domestic workers and nurses reveal that in the

spirit of global competitiveness, labor brokers sell Filipina workers as “ideal” global labor

commodities who possess added export values and that such become their competitive advantage

as workers. Within the context of Filipina nurses, labor brokers assert that in addition to their

facility in the English language and nursing educational training, they offer what I refer to as