Foreign domestic helpers and children's English reading attainment

Abstract

As female labour force participation in the workforce increases, nonparental childcares become popular in many developed countries. In Hong Kong many middle class families employ a foreign domestic helper to assist domestic housework and childcares. As foreign domestic workers generally speak English, this provides an opportunity for children to practice speaking English in early life. With this background, this paper examines whether the employment of a foreign domestic helper would have an influence to a child’s reading performance. The sample included parents/ guardians and children, both have a number of 3,025 in total. The instruments consisted of two parts. The first part was a survey for parents in order to understand their social-economic background and their attitudes towards employing a domestic helper. The second part of the instrument was reading tests for children. Two types of test, ‘reading for literary experience’ and ‘reading to acquire and use information’, were used to generate reading attainment scores. The reading tests used are adapted from The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001. The results interestingly suggest that there is a relationship between English reading achievements and the language used by foreign domestic helpers and parents. The data analysis shows that English speaking domestic helpers tend to have a stronger relationship with children’s performance of English reading tests than children’s parents.