Body of foreign labor－A study on the health view of Philippine female worker in the manufacturing industry of Taoyuan district and a study on the use of medical resource

• Main Authors: Yun-Wei Lee, 李昀蔚
• Other Authors: 陳芬苓
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46514703969039504781

碩士 === 元智大學 === 資訊社會學研究所 === 95 === Labor migration is now a global trend. Along with the social economic development, our country has to face with the issue of labor migration too. Labor migration is now a global trend and their health issues are gradually emphasized; the researchers hope to analyze foreign worker’s health concept through this study and investigate the possible health issues and health needs during foreign worker’s stay in Taiwan. The research objectives of this study include: (1) Investigate the definition on health and disease from the foreign workers; (2) Investigate the effect on the health concept of the foreign worker based on cultural factor; (3) Investigate the effect on the usage of medical resource by the foreign worker based on social rank factor; (4) Investigate the effect on the health of foreign worker caused by the environmental factor. Participant observation method and in-depth interview method will be adopted in this study, and the research targets are the female Philippine foreign workers, in the manufacturing industry of Taoyuan County, who have arrived and stayed in Taiwan for more than six months. The study results are: Female Philippine foreign workers define the health only from the concept of body health and only very few of them define the health from psychological health point of views. One special characteristic from their views on the health: They think that as long as they are vigorous and energetic to work, this is the so-called healthy body. They treat their bodies as tools for work and all their focuses are all on the work. As long as a body can support herself for the job, that body is a healthy body. In the usage of medical resource and to the female Philippine workers here in Taiwan, difficulty in communication due to language and the difficulty of adaptation to the culture here are the major reasons for their isolations from the medical resource. Communication difficulty make them hesitating to see a doctor; insufficient medical information makes them find the same doctor no matter what disease they have. In their mother country, they don’t see a doctor when they are sick are mostly due to economic reason; but in Taiwan, even their economy has been improved, yet most of the female Philippine foreign workers still do not take “seeing a doctor” as the first priority choice when they are sick.