5

“So They Remember Me When

I’m Gone”: Remittances,
Fatherhood and Gender Relations
of Filipino Migrant Men
Steven McKay

Introduction

The Philippines is one of the leading senders of migrant labour into the
global economy, with over 8.2 million Filipinos – or about 10 per cent of
the current Philippine population – working and residing in some 140
countries. These labour migrants, in turn, have played a pivotal role in
supporting the Philippine economy, remitting over USD 21 billion – or
about 12 per cent of the country’s GDP – back to the Philippines (BSP,
2013). As an Asian Development Bank (ADB) paper noted, “Remittances
have become the single most important source of foreign exchange to
the economy and a significant source of income for recipient families”
(Ang et al., 2009: v).
The sheer size of the Philippine labour diaspora and its develop-
ment over the last 40 years have spawned a number of important
studies across a range of occupations – from nurses to domestics to
entertainers – that have made important contributions to key debates,
such as the role of the state in gendering migrant streams (Tyner, 2000),
the gendering and racialisation of particular occupations (Choy, 2003;
Lan, 2006; Guevarra, 2010), the rise of transnational families (Parrenas,
2005) and the interplay between sexuality and workplace discipline
(Constable, 1997). Yet due in part to the feminisation of Philippine
out-migration in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, nearly all of these gender
studies have centred on women. And while feminisation reached a peak
in 2004 when 74 per cent of all migrants were women, since 2007 men

111

L. A. Hoang et al. (eds.), Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and the

Changing Family in Asia
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2015
112 Remittances as Gendered Processes

have actually outnumbered women every year.1 To help balance the

scholarship on gender, migration and the Philippines, this study focuses
on an important but understudied group of labouring men: merchant
seafarers. Today the Philippines dominates the global seafarer labour
market: nearly one in three merchant sailors in the world is Filipino
and over 366,000 Filipinos sail the world’s oceans, sending home over
USD 4.8 billion a year (BSP, 2013; POEA, 2013a). Some 97 per cent of
Filipino seafarers are men, and in the Philippines they have a reputation
as “exemplars of masculinity” due in large part to the nature of their
precarious work, their stories of adventure and, most importantly, their
high level of earnings and remittances to their families.
The case of Filipino seafarers provides a unique opportunity to con-
tribute to important debates at the intersection of migration and gen-
der studies. First, the study contributes to the burgeoning scholarship
on masculinity, building on the notion of multiple masculinities but
complicating Connell’s (1995, 1998) extension of a single hegemonic
masculinity to the global scale. Rather, the study demonstrates how
masculinities, even when constructed transnationally, may still be based
on and help to reinforce locally specific gender norms. The study of
migrant men thus highlights the continued importance of context
and place even among mobile labour, and how the constructions of
masculinities continue to be situational (Paap, 2006; Gutmann, 2007).
Second, the study helps to address the scholarship on migration, gender
and remittances, but it does so from a relatively unexplored perspec-
tive: that of male migrants and the role that remittances and economic
investments can play in “doing gender” and constructing masculine
selves (West and Zimmerman, 1987; Mahler and Pessar, 2006). This
chapter will address the issues of remittances in terms of how they
relate to seamen’s active gender performances across social fields, and
in their families and communities, both while they are on periodic
“visits” home and when they are at sea, or away from their families
for six months to a year. Finally, this chapter will also contribute to
the study of Filipino masculinity, both generally and how it relates to
migration (Pingol, 2001; Espana-Maram, 2006). While there have been
a large number of studies on gender and migration focusing on Filipino
women, very few studies have addressed issues of migrant men (but
see Margold, 1995; Parrenas, 2008). Similarly, there remains a dearth
of studies on Filipino masculinity, particularly as it differs from Western
norms (Rubio and Green, 2009). Overall, I argue that while men’s migra-
tory work and their remittances may generally help to reinforce local
 Steven McKay 113

and national gender norms of Filipino masculinity – particularly in

terms of providership – paradoxically the seamen’s strong position and
recognition as adequate material providers also allows them to tran-
scend some traditional household gender roles towards building closer
emotional ties to their families and possibly expanding what it means
to be a man in the Philippines.

Overview of Filipino seafarers and remittance policies

Filipino seafarers did not have a significant presence in contempo-

rary international shipping until the 1970s. However, a combination
of the global oil crisis, the deregulation of shipping and crewing, a
colonial history of US involvement in Philippine maritime education
and the Philippine government’s own initiation of a labour export pol-
icy in the 1970s contributed to the entrance of Filipino seafarers into
the global labour market.2 A 72-year-old captain and head of one of
the main Philippine manning agency associations commented: “It was
Greek ships that started recruiting Filipinos . . . word spread out in Europe
that Filipinos were good and cheap . . . spread like fire because they were
already short of seamen.” Following the Greek shipowners’ lead, other
European and Japanese shipowners also started hiring Filipinos. From
only 2,000 Filipinos on foreign ships in the 1960s, by 1975 the num-
ber had increased more than ten-fold. By 1980 it had doubled again to
over 57,000, and by 2012 the official number had reached over 366,000
(NSB, 1982; POEA, 2013a). Seafarers represent about 20 per cent of all
overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) deployed in a single year, but less than
4 per cent of the entire stock estimate of 8.7 million Filipinos living and
working outside the Philippines (POEA, 2013a).
Yet despite making up only a small percentage of OFWs, seafarers
nonetheless contribute a disproportionate number of remittances back
to the Philippines. So while overall they represent only 3.8 per cent of
all OFWs, in 2012 they remitted USD 4.8 billion or over 22 per cent of
the total USD 21.4 billion in remittances or over USD14,000 per seafarer
per year (BSP, 2013). The growth of seafarer remittances has also climbed
steadily. From 2008 to 2012, remittances from seafarers grew by 60 per-
cent, or nearly three times the growth rate of land-based OFWs (BPS,
2013). As will be discussed in much more detail below, because total and
average remittances among seafarers are so large, a greater percentage is
often available and used for investment in both human and physical
capital.
114 Remittances as Gendered Processes

Seafarers and mandatory remittances

An important explanation for seafarers’ extraordinary levels of
remittances is the Philippine government’s remittance policies and pro-
cedures particular to seafarers. Before the Philippines developed an
explicit and institutionalised labour export policy, the government sim-
ply encouraged overseas workers, particularly from the USA, to send
some of their earnings back to the Philippines. However, as the gov-
ernment, under President Ferdinand Marcos, formalised the policy of
labour export in the 1970s in response to domestic economic and polit-
ical crises, seafarers were at the forefront of the mandatory remittance
policy experiment. In 1974 the amendment to the new Labor Code
made it mandatory for Filipino workers to remit “a portion” of their for-
eign exchange earnings back to the Philippines through the Philippine
banking system (APMMF, n.d.). However, the law was not specific about
the exact percentage of foreign earnings to be remitted as this was to be
left to the Department of Labor and government agencies that regulated
overseas workers, namely the National Seaman’s Board (NSB) and the
Overseas Employment and Development Board. But it was only the NSB
that quickly established a mandatory remittance policy with a specific
minimum percentage.
The NSB, established in 1974, was explicitly designed to promote and
regulate Filipino seafarers and to generate foreign exchange (NSB, 1976).
The main force in crafting NSB policies was its assistant executive direc-
tor, Captain Benjamin Tanedo, a graduate of the US Merchant Marine
Academy at King’s Point, New York, and a captain in the Philippine Navy
who was personally tapped by the then president, Ferdinand Marcos, as
the highest agency official with direct experience in the maritime sector.
In interviews, Captain Tanedo admitted that he created the mandatory
remittance policy based on his own experience as a seafarer and with
other seamen.
Interestingly, Tanedo’s conception of Filipino seafarers is deeply
connected with their construction as “marginally masculine” or hyper-
masculine men who exhibit certain masculine qualities, such as aggres-
siveness and strength, yet do not match the “ideal” masculinity of
mature and responsible Filipino men as providers, and thus are in
need of protection, even from themselves (Rubio and Green, 2009, dis-
cussed in greater detail below). Tanedo noted that at the time, many
Filipino seafarers were known to exhaust all of their earnings in port
or on “blow-outs” (big parties) upon return home, leaving no savings
or support for their families. Other seafarers who were interviewed cor-
roborated this view of the Filipino seafarer, at least at this earlier point
 Steven McKay 115

in time. For example, one who had been sailing for 33 years explained:
“here, the concept of Filipinos about seamen is that of being ‘one-day
millionaires’ – one day they come with lots of money and then the
next, they spend everything in gambling and drinking . . . . Perhaps they
observed it before with seamen, but times are changing and this is no
longer happening.”

Executive Order 857 and the failure to extend mandatory

remittances to other occupations
Based in part on the image of the “immature” Filipino seafarers and in
order to “protect” the seamen and their families from the seamen’s own
vices, Captain Tanedo proposed and created a mandatory remittance
policy after 1976 in which 70 per cent of a seafarer’s base wages were
to be remitted through a Philippine bank directly to an “allottee” of
the seafarer’s choice, usually an immediate family member such as their
wife or mother. This provision for mandatory remittances was the first
of its kind in the Philippines, and the government hoped to repli-
cate and extend such a policy to other, land-based overseas workers.
So in 1982 Executive Order (EO) 857 was issued, which aimed to set
official mandatory foreign exchange remittance levels to go through
official bank channels for all classifications of overseas workers. Provi-
sions of the law were for mandatory remittances of 50–70 per cent of
wages, depending on occupation. EO 857, however, caused a firestorm
of protest from overseas workers, mainly from lower-wage workers who
were residing abroad and who did not earn enough in their jobs to remit
such a large portion of their salary. Overseas workers’ organisations,
particularly in Hong Kong and the Middle East that worked directly
with migrant Filipino women employed as domestics, were galvanised
around the forced remittance issue and successfully mobilised against its
implementation. Thus the implementing portion of the law was almost
entirely rescinded in 1985 due to pressure for reform, and mandatory
remittances were eliminated for all occupations except seafarers. In fact,
the mandatory remittance level for seafarers was raised just a year before,
in early 1984 under EO 924, to 80 per cent of base salary, which is still
enforced today.
Notably, there was little organised resistance by seafarers regarding
EO 857 and the mandatory remittance policies. Individually, some
seafarers who were interviewed complained about the abuse of the
remittance system in which seafarer salaries – paid in foreign currency –
are collected by their manning or employment agency, which then
determines the exchange rate and deposits the equivalent amount in
116 Remittances as Gendered Processes

Philippine pesos into the seafarer’s legal allottee’s bank account. These
complaints often centred on “point-shaving” by the agency, or the use
of an exchange rate below the official bank rate and late payment of
remittances to allottees. These complaints were echoed in a study of
seafarer marginalisation conducted by the International Seafarer Action
Center (ISAC), which surveyed 850 seafarers and found that a significant
minority had complaints about non-payment of wages (11 per cent),
illegal salary deductions by manning agencies (17 per cent) and delayed
payments to allottees (11 per cent) (ISAC, 2004). However, the study did
not find significant complaints about the broader issue of mandatory
remittances, which seems to be an accepted practice among seafarers.
This may be, in part, because the system has been in place from the very
beginning so, unlike for domestics and other overseas Filipino work-
ers who resisted it, EO 857 was not a change in policy and was not
experienced as a shift in past practice. In addition, unlike land-based
migrants, seafarers do not have the same opportunities to spend their
salaries while under contract and onboard ship. And, as mentioned
above, they also have higher-than-average salaries, and do collect 20 per
cent of their base pay and all of their overtime and extra or bonus pay
onboard, making it more likely that they can afford to send more of
their base pay directly to their allottees. In fact, many seafarers appreci-
ated the ability of their relatives to receive cash remittances while they
were at sea, when it would be difficult for seafarers to access banking
services. Finally, seafarer unions, which might appear to best represent
collective seafarer interests and therefore be primary actors in resisting
the mandatory remittance policy, have not made it a central issue. This
may be because, through the current system, unions are able to directly
deduct their dues from seafarer pay from the manning agencies, pro-
viding them with an incentive to maintain the current system rather
than to fight to dismantle it. Seafarer associations and unions have also
focused more of their attention on helping seafarers to better invest their
savings than on challenging the mandatory remittance policy generally.

Filipino masculinities and migration

As noted above, the gender scholarship on Filipino masculinity and

migration remains both empirically and theoretically thin. To address
this gap, it is necessary to draw on but also extend recent scholarship
on masculinity more generally. Central to many contemporary studies
and debates on men and gender is R. W. Connell’s notion of hegemonic
masculinity (Connell, 1995). This is the normative ideal of what is “the
 Steven McKay 117

currently most honored way of being a man” in a particular society and

its dominance over subordinate and marginal masculinities as well as all
women (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005: 832; Kimmel et al., 2005).
With rising global economic interdependence and greater cross-border
flows, some argue that a certain “transnational business masculinity” is
becoming hegemonic over the local (Connell and Wood, 2005). How-
ever, while bringing a transnational lens adds an important dimension,
a number of recent volumes point out that there continue to be a quite
diverse range of masculinities among regions and countries, and that it
remains crucial to specify the constraints, contexts and strategies in and
through which such masculinities are formed (Louie and Low, 2003;
Osella and Osella, 2006; Gutmann, 2007; Ford and Lyons, 2012).
The confluence of masculinity and migration is particularly inter-
esting, as migratory work highlights the situational character of mas-
culinity, since there is a greater separation of workplace and home,
and migrant men are able to “do gender” and enact their masculine
identities in a broader array of distinct locations using distinct strate-
gies (West and Zimmerman, 1987). Espana-Maram’s (2006) study of
working-class Filipino migrants to the USA in the early 20th century
shows how this group of low-wage, low-status men nevertheless asserted
their own forms of masculinity, both by enduring harsh and degrad-
ing working conditions and by engaging in gambling, boxing and other
forms of expressive culture during their non-work hours. Other studies
of migrant men have similarly shown that despite exploitative and even
emasculating conditions in the workplace, migratory work can provide
the material and cultural capital to enact exemplary forms of masculin-
ity upon migrants’ return home, particularly through their remittances
and conspicuous consumption, tales of adventure and the ability to ful-
fil the social obligations of high-status males (Osella and Osella, 2000;
Brown, 2006; Datta et al., 2008).

Filipino masculinity
The scholarship on contemporary Filipino masculinity resonates with
some aspects of hegemonic masculinity in the West, as discussed by
Connell and others. Pingol (2001) demonstrates that, in general, local
constructions of masculinity centre on being “good providers, virile sex
partners, firm and strong fathers” (Pingol, 2001: 8). But men’s fash-
ioning of their own masculinity also fell along a continuum: at one
end a focus on self-control and respect from others (kinalalaki), and
at the other end an emphasis on controlling or being feared by others
(malalaki). Respect was earned through a man’s independent earnings,
118 Remittances as Gendered Processes

leadership, self-discipline, endurance of suffering and ability to abstain

sexually, while fear was maintained through physical domination, risk-
taking, psychological coercion and publicly expressing the “machismo
of rogues and daredevils” (Pingol, 2001: 4). In one of the few stud-
ies of gender and Filipino migrant working men, Margold (1995: 290)
makes a similar argument, contrasting the masculine ideals of verbal
eloquence, galante (gracefulness) and adventurousness among Illocanos,
versus the “aggressive control” over wives and children that is chosen
by some “failed” migrant men returning from the Middle East. Impor-
tantly, Margold points out the class associations of the two ends of the
spectrum and how the exploitation and humiliation of low-paid, low-
status labour can limit men’s ability to construct a masculine identity
from actions that garner respect rather than fear.
Rubio and Green (2009) argue that Filipino masculinity differs from
Western ideals in that in the Philippines there is greater emphasis on
“family orientedness” and less focus on “aggression, emotional restric-
tion, dominance, and an overemphasis on strength” (p. 70). It is inter-
esting to note that Rubio and Green’s notion of “family orientedness”
is primarily defined in terms of men’s providership role. In summaris-
ing the existing literature and their own findings, they note: “Filipino
fathers are often referred to as haligi ng tahanan (the cornerstone of the
home), a description that connotes providing economically for and tak-
ing charge of the family. This ideal has been the ultimate indicator of a
truly masculine male in the Philippines” (p. 62).

Impact of migration on constructions of masculinity

Yet Filipino masculinity, and broader gender relations in the Philippines,
have also been influenced by the rise of out-migration. Since 1974 the
Philippine government has promoted a migration- and remittance-led
development strategy, encouraging labour out-migration both to relieve
domestic political pressure and to earn much-needed foreign exchange
(Tyner, 2000; Guevarra, 20010). While early migrants were primarily
men who were concentrated in construction and going to the Middle
East, from the 1980s the Philippines began broadening its labour profile,
sending out greater numbers of women who were working as domestic
helpers, nurses and entertainers. This feminisation of migration grew
steadily until 2004, when nearly 75 per cent of the approximately
4 million temporary labour migrants from the Philippines were women
and overall remittances reached USD 8.5 billion. And, as noted above,
women migrant workers became both more organised and more visi-
ble following the mid-1980s, in part because of the fight against forced
 Steven McKay 119

remittances in the movement against EO 857, and in part in response to

a spike in migrant abuses abroad that became heavily publicised in the
Philippines (Rodriguez, 2010). In response to the growing numbers of
women migrants, their increased visibility and their rising remittances,
the Philippine state began honouring them as the nation’s “new” or
“modern day heroes” (Bagong Bayani). This was enshrined by the annual
Bagong Bayani awards that the Philippine state has given out since 1984
to “outstanding and exemplary Overseas Filipino Workers” for their eco-
nomic contributions to the nation as well as “enhancing and promoting
the image of the Filipino as a competent, responsible and dignified
worker” (Bagong Bayani Foundation, 2013).
Despite the often-empty government rhetoric, Filipino migrant
women have embraced this label of “new hero”, in large part because
it gives them more national visibility, increases their political leverage
and acknowledges the broadening of women’s gender roles to include
providership, which as noted above has traditionally been associated
with men (Parrenas, 2005; Rodriguez, 2010). The increase in women’s
migration and women migrants’ “role encroachment” as providers has
thus challenged local norms of masculinity. Coupled with persistent
high levels of un- and underemployment among men in the Philippines,
these conditions have put increased pressure on Filipino men to con-
struct masculinity beyond simple providership, even as providership
remains central to the Filipino masculine ideal.3
Some of the difficulties and complexities of constructing masculinities
in the Philippines is noted by Parrenas (2005, 2008), whose study
of fatherhood and the families of male overseas migrant workers
emphasises a Filipino man’s primary role as the family breadwinner,
who is responsible for literally building and supporting the family
home. Parrenas goes further, however, arguing that while the moth-
ering role expands for mothers who work abroad, “fathering narrows
in transnational families” because men’s migration tends to heighten
gendered norms of conventional fatherhood as absent migrant fathers
are often reduced to providing material support and projecting author-
ity from afar, at the expense of emotional attachment and shared
child-centred parenting (Parrenas, 2005: 34).
However, while Parrenas’ study goes a long way towards helping to
illuminate the connections between migration, fatherhood and con-
ventional Filipino masculinity, it may represent too narrow an interpre-
tation of Filipino masculinity and migrant male gender performances,
particularly because it does not explicitly take into account the perspec-
tive of male migrants themselves. In the section below, I draw on one
120 Remittances as Gendered Processes

of the few studies of Filipino seafarers and on interviews with approx-

imately 100 Filipino seafarers to better flesh out who Filipino seafarers
are; their own understandings of Filipino masculinity; the insecurities
that they face as migrant men, husbands and fathers trying to live up to
these ideal notions; and their strategies for coping with these insecuri-
ties and demands, particularly as they pertain to emotional attachment,
parenting strategies, remittances and spending patterns.

“Doing masculinity”: Roles, relations and remittances

of seafarers

Seafarer profile
Seafaring has traditionally been a male-dominated profession and in
the Philippines this is no different: as mentioned above, 97 per cent of
Filipino seafarers are men. In one of the only comprehensive studies of
Filipino seafarers, Amante (2003) surveyed over 1,000 Filipino seafarers
and students at 11 maritime colleges in the Philippines. He found that
81 per cent of seafarers originated from the three major areas of the cen-
tral and southern Philippines, which are also among the poorest regions
of the country (the Visayan islands, 30 percent; the islands of Negros
and Panay, 28 per cent; and Mindanao, 23 per cent). Interestingly, the
regions that produce the majority of seafarers also produce many female
migrants, who often work abroad as domestics and medical profession-
als. According to the 2011 Survey on Overseas Filipinos, the regions
mentioned above send approximately the same total number of men
and women workers outside the Philippines (NSO, 2012). And from
Negros and Panay islands, probably the most concentrated source of
seafarers, overall there are actually more women migrants than men:
99,000 and 95,000, respectively (NSO, 2012). The rise in out-migration
of both men and women does influence the constructions and negoti-
ations of gender norms, particularly around the gendered meanings of
providership. As noted above, the increase in women who provide for
their families through their remittances is a key source of “role encroach-
ment” that has led Filipino men, and particularly seafarers, to push their
definitions of masculinity beyond – but still including – providership.
The seafarers surveyed were also primarily from rural and poor back-
grounds, with the large majority having fathers who were fisherman
(32 per cent), farmers (21 per cent) or self-employed (16 per cent). Only
9 per cent of seafarers had fathers who were also merchant seafarers,
possibly reflecting the newness of the occupation. Yet because of the
increasing demands of the occupation, as well as rising competition,
 Steven McKay 121

Filipino seafarers are increasingly well educated. In Amante’s (2003)

survey, 55 per cent of seafarers had a college degree and 86 per cent
had at least a post-secondary school certificate. And while the major-
ity of seafarers surveyed had mothers that were full-time housewives,
only 3 per cent of those seafarers who were married had wives that
were full-time housewives. In fact, seafarers’ wives had a similar educa-
tional attainment as seafarers, and 37 per cent of them were employed as
professionals (primarily teachers and nurses). The changing class com-
position and position of seafarers has also influenced the models of
masculinity that they try to project, as will be discussed further below.

Strains and hurdles in achieving masculine ideals

Even though the Philippines dominates global seafaring, becoming a
seafarer can be quite difficult and being a seafarer has many challenges.
In terms of recruitment, competition is fierce and seafarers must often
work though labour-market intermediaries to break into the industry.
While there are over 350,000 seafarers who are deployed in ocean-
going ships each year, there are another 300,000 Filipinos who are
certified to sail yet who cannot find work abroad. Seafarers often find
out about vacancies through their networks – whether from their for-
mer maritime schools or programmes, family members, neighbours or
province-mates, friends or former fellow crew members (Amante, 2003).
They might also learn about jobs through the advertisements of crewing
or manning agencies, of which there are over 400 officially registered
in the Philippines (POEA, 2013b). Finally, some find jobs through the
informal seafarer labour market in Manila’s Rizal Park, where each day
thousands of seafarers congregate along the sidewalks in the hope of
landing a spot onboard. This network-based process makes it difficult
for young mariners to get their first jobs unless they have family mem-
bers or other “sponsors”, such as school placement officers, who are
already well connected. The difficulty in getting one’s first ship and the
general precariousness of the labour market means that many seafarers
face extended bouts of unemployment and joblessness, obviously mak-
ing it difficult for them to fulfil the traditional masculine role of family
provider.
Even employed seafarers face many challenges. Amante (2003) found
that approximately 73 per cent of Filipino seafarers were married and
71 per cent had children (for similar results, see NMP, 2006). The
extended absences of migrant husbands and fathers from their spouses
and children can place an enormous strain on marital relations and
their ability to perform, from afar, ideal notions of masculinity centred
122 Remittances as Gendered Processes

on family. One of the most commonly expressed fears among both

active seafarers and their spouses is that of extramarital affairs. This is
particularly acute as seafarers generally have an image of babaero (wom-
anisers) who frequent prostitutes or even have second families in distant
ports. However, many seafarers tended to downplay this reputation and
instead expressed the insecurities that are created by separation from
their spouses. One 46-year-old married second officer with two children
lamented: “I am putting my family life at stake with this kind of job.
In truth, we seamen only rely on the sincerity and faithfulness of our
wives. If they would do ‘kalokohan’ [mess around] and we would know
about it – that would be the hardest thing to accept.” Similarly, a married
second officer with one child noted:

They say sea-manloloko [seamen are tricksters]? That is bullshit

because seamen are niloloko na ngayon [the ones getting tricked].
I know several seamen whom I pity because they are working their
asses off aboard the ship and their wives are doing something wrong
here in the Philippines. They keep on sending money and yet their
wives are free to do anything. So if you are a seaman, your wife should
be trustworthy because you would be away for so many months and
even a year. A lot of incidents like these happen.

A related strain that migration places on seamen concerns their rela-

tions with their own children. In many ways, the seamen who were
interviewed did generally subscribe to Filipino gender norms of con-
ventional fatherhood, performing – as best they can – their roles as
familial authority figures. Yet their laments about their strained rela-
tions with their children even surpassed their fear of wayward wives.
One 29-year-old seaman said in anguish:

I do not get to see my family often because we are on sea for nine
months and are on vacation only for a few months. I feel that I am
growing old but I am not growing old with them. I miss them. It feels
like I am left out. They are all there, growing old together, and then
I come home and see them and I feel like a part of me is missing.

Another 41-year-old seaman with one daughter explained:

I could say that I have spent more time on board than with my fam-
ily . . . my child was one year old . . . . When I was in the ship, whenever
I hear the voice of my daughter, I might be in tears. When I went
 Steven McKay 123

home last December, I’m really excited when I saw my family. But
when I was calling her she would not look at my face. She would not
come with me. It took one week before I became near her. Whenever
we would sleep at night, she would cry, so I would sleep outside the
mosquito net . . . . Perhaps [after one week] she understood that I’m
really her father.

Finally, a 30-year-old officer with one child explained:

I often miss my child. When I left, he was only crawling and when
I returned home, he was already running. He did not want to come
near me because I had a mustache. I thought then, “what if I went
on-board again and when I go home he is already married?” You are
not here monitoring your children while they are growing. That is
something. Yes, you are earning this kind of money but there is a
negative effect. That is the negative side of seafaring.

Thus in terms of family relations and fulfilling their roles as husbands

and fathers, Filipino seafarers often find it acutely difficult to maintain
close emotional ties with their children and wives. Yet this does not nec-
essarily mean that the seafarers become emotionally withdrawn. While
Parrenas (2005: 75) found in interviews with children a “tendency of
migrant fathers to reduce expressions of love to the provision of mate-
rial goods”, I found that seafarers do not want to narrow their roles to
simply material provision, but seek multiple ways to connect emotion-
ally with their wives and children. As will be seen below, remittances
can be used in conjunction with other strategies to help migrant men to
“recover”, build and sometimes extend Filipino notions of mature and
emotionally rich masculinity, even when they are not physically present
with their families.

The limit of higher incomes for “mature” masculinity

As other studies have noted, migration and remittances can help
migrant men, despite possibly degrading or “feminized” work abroad, to
achieve masculine ideals at home, particularly in terms of providership
(Datta et al., 2008; Batnitzky et al., 2009). And despite some studies that
argue that women migrants are both better savers and better remitters
than men (Rahman and Fee, 2009), a closer study of Filipino migrants
finds in fact that Filipino migrant men remit more funds than migrant
women (Semyonov and Gorodzeisky, 2005, discussed in more detail
below). This study shows that much of the gender “gap” in remittances
124 Remittances as Gendered Processes

is due primarily to the higher earnings of migrant Filipino men, who

work in generally more highly paid occupations. This is clearly the
case for seafarers, who, as mentioned above, remit on average over USD
14,000 per year. Thus for seafarers – whether officers or of lower rank –
their earnings and remittances represent for their families a real poten-
tial for class mobility. As noted above, seamen come from primarily rural
or working-class backgrounds, with over 50 per cent from farming or
fishing families and only 2 per cent being the children of professionals
(Amante, 2003).
At the community level, seafarer earnings and remittances can help to
bolster their class and masculine standing. One 40-year-old non-officer
with two children explained:

I think our standard of living improved now that I am a seaman. If I

did not become a seaman, I do not know what could have become of
me. We have some land in the province. I might have been plowing
there. Of course when you plow fields, you are nothing. Now when
they see me, I think they have some respect for me.

Similarly, when asked about the status of seafarers alongside other

professions, one older chief officer noted:

in the Philippines, the top is still doctor or lawyer. But now, the
seaman is going up because people know seamen have money. If a
woman knows you’re a seaman, they will want to marry you because
they know they will get a big allotment . . . . But it’s not so high. Sea-
man is a good job for poor people. A good job with good pay that
they can get.

Nevertheless, seafarers – particularly given their increased educational

attainment mentioned above – often feel that they deserve to be
accorded the same status as other, more professional occupations. One
explained: “our salary is bigger than the salary of a bank manager and
yet we are ordinary people. Others look at us as ordinary people and yet
those who work at office just earn PhP20,000 to PhP25,000. They wear
barong [formal Filipino men’s shirt] and people look up to them.” Sim-
ilarly, when comparing seafarers with other professionals, a 41-year-old
married officer noted:

I think we are all the same. The problem is we are accused of being
so many things. One allegation pertains to women. They never call
 Steven McKay 125

doctors or lawyers womanizers. It is just us . . . [Seamen] can go to

beerhouses and really splurge. But the truth is, seamen are not the
only ones who womanize or frequent beerhouses.

This image is partly due to the spending patterns of returning seafarers

and/or their families. One seaman explained:

A lot of people see the seamen as only dollars. Sometimes you can’t
blame them because some seamen’s wives are showy. Like in my
sub-division – there are some that buy lots of things to show off, even
if the guy is just an OS [ordinary seaman, the lowest ranked position
onboard].

Investing in masculinity
Because of the lingering negative image of high-earning seafarers as irre-
sponsible spendthrifts, many seafarers try to promote a different mas-
culine image of seafarers as more mature, professional and responsible.
This is often defended in terms of their changing spending and invest-
ment patterns. An engine-room oiler explained: “nowadays, seamen are
different. These young guys now, they know already to save, even the
single ones. They save so they so can have a small business at home,
especially when they are on vacation. The seamen before never saves his
money.” This perspective was echoed by others. Another married oiler
with three children explained: “we are now educated compared to the
seamen before. The old seamen are fond of spending, they even close the
streets for a drinking spree. The seamen now bring home their earnings
direct to their families.” Finally, a young officer, when asked if the iden-
tity of seafarers is changing, noted: “Yes because we are now educated
and devoted with our work. We spend our money wisely instead of hav-
ing a good time at a beerhouse or pubs. We prefer to buy international
call cards to be able to call our families here in the Philippines.” The
responses of these seafarers supports the argument, made above, that
“family orientedness” is at the core of the mature, more “professional”
Filipino masculine ideal and that fulfilment of this role is achieved pri-
marily through earnings and providership.4 These findings echo those of
Rao (Chapter 2, in this volume) and Kusakabe and Pearson (Chapter 3,
in this volume), who find that remittances and spending have different
gendered meanings over a migrant’s life course.
Remittances, then, are central to seafarers achieving mature masculin-
ity, and seafarers tend to emphasise productive investment and family
126 Remittances as Gendered Processes

support when discussing their status within their wider communities.

A 46-year-old chief mate explained:

When I was in elementary and in high school, I really wanted to

become a seaman because I idolized my seamen cousins and uncles.
One of my uncles who was a second engineer had a nice life. He
was sending his children to good schools. So I idolized him and also
wanted to become a seaman so I can have a better to life, support my
family, send my children to school and give my mother an allotment.

An older, chief engineer made similar claims:

I am proud because seafaring enabled me to build a house, buy a

vehicle and buy all the things for inside the house . . . . They [the
townspeople] idolize you because they can see that you have a good
life and your children can wear good clothes. And our tuition fees are
no longer a problem. In other families, these are difficult to pay.

Finally, a 45-year-old officer said that his neighbours “see my lifestyle,

I have my Pajero [a type of sport utility vehicle], my kids are studying
in private school. I have this billiard business. Even though they are not
talking they know how I live a blissful life.” Remittances, in the case
of bolstering community status and claims to masculinity then, tend to
reinforce traditional gender roles of men as providers. However, as will
be seen in the section below, remittances and earnings from migrant
work can also be used by some men to expand their actions beyond
an exclusively provider role, and shift gender and intergenerational
relations within their families.

Remittances and the (re)making of masculinity beyond

the material
The seafarers’ responses regarding their spending and remitting pat-
terns reflect the findings of other studies on migrant Filipino men.
As Maravillas (2005) found, the three primary areas of expenditure are
housing, education for family members and household appliances. One
of the primary investments that seafarers make is in the purchase of land
and the building of a house. And while a house is clearly constructed
for the benefit of the family, it is also an investment that promotes the
seafarers’ image in his community. As Parrenas (2005: 70) argues, “home
measures the masculinity of men in the Philippines, with its size consid-
ered to be one determining criterion of the successful fulfilment of one’s
 Steven McKay 127

role as haligi ng tahanan”. Seafarers, like many overseas workers from

the Philippines, are quite well known for constructing often enormous
houses in their home towns (Lamvik, 2002). As a married third engineer
explained,

people can see that seamen have money. In my town, lots of seamen,
and they can build houses . . . . Even an AB [able-bodied seaman] or
OS [ordinary seaman], they can already build a house. And you can
always tell a seamen’s house. They always put an anchor on the gate.
An anchor, or a propeller if they are from the engine department.
And maybe on their car or jeep, the name of their ship, so everybody
knows they are a seaman.

Interestingly, while seafarers often like to boast about their home, the
meanings that such outsized investments have for their families are
often more nuanced. In a discussion with community members in an
area where nearly half of the households are headed by seafarers, one
young person explained: “they have really big houses to announce ‘yes,
I am a seaman’. That way, no one will forget. Maybe they have such
big houses so the family and everyone can’t forget. They are somehow
always there, even if they are not.”
The multiple audiences influenced by the seafarers’ investments into
their homes points to a deeper interpretation as to the meanings of
seafarer remittances beyond material provision. Lamvik (2002), in his
anthropological study of Filipino seafarers and their spending, intro-
duces the notion of “conspicuous absence”. Building on Veblen’s well-
known idea of conspicuous consumption, Lamvik argues that Filipino
seafarers invest enormous resources into building family homes as phys-
ical reminders to all of their sacrifices and that their providership is
made possible by their leaving. As Lamvik (2002: 197) puts it, “to be
away [is to] link them to their families. Their absence makes them
present. Through their investments and expenditures on gifts, phone
calls, housing, education, business projects, etc. They achieve a sort of
conspicuous absence.”
Viewed through a lens of conspicuous absence, we can view Filipino
seafarers’ actions and spending patterns as a way for them to remain
connected to their families, even when at sea. In many respects, the
remittances in these seafarer communities serve a similar symbolic
function as those that Kreager and Schröder-Butterfill (Chapter 7, in
this volume) found among migrant sending communities in Indonesia.
In fact, migrant seafarers demonstrate comparable strategies related to
128 Remittances as Gendered Processes

their spending that help them to deal with family issues or to maintain
closer ties with their families and communities. At times, their spend-
ing and actions can help to broaden traditional Filipino gender roles
for both themselves and their wives. Overall, these strategies tend to
fall along a continuum between simple economic provision and build-
ing more emotional connections. At one end, a seaman and father of
two claimed: “in my own opinion, when you are a successful seaman
with a family, your children are the ones who are lucky . . . because you
can give them whatever they want”. Similarly, a 45-year-old officer with
two children stated frankly: “they [my family] are used that I am always
away. When we have some misunderstandings I just give them money –
everything will turn okay.” However, simply providing material goods is
often seen as only second best, a type of stand-in for the absent father.
A 49-year-old chief engineer with three children said:

I have a problem in communication with my family. And I have a

problem with my children because I cannot supervise them person-
ally . . . . Maybe it is okay if I only have one child. But I have three
children. Now, my eldest is giving me a problem . . . I solve this prob-
lem by being open and frank to them. I try to explain to them our
situation. [But] even if we have cellphones, sometimes we cannot
contact our families because there are places where there is no signal.
And sometimes, there are places where it is expensive to call. We have
to pay $5 per minute, off-peak. I would rather buy “pasalubong” [small
gifts] for them.

Another form of conspicuous absence is the buying of physical

reminders of the absent father. One of the main ways is by having many
pictures of the seafarer displayed in the home. One 43-year-old father
explained: “When I arrived here, my children didn’t recognize me. I was
also outside the ‘kulambo’ [mosquito net]. But now, they have already
adjusted because my picture is always shown to them.”
Gender roles for the wives of migrant seafarers can also be somewhat
extended, in relation both to remittances and to fulfilling the needs
of the family. Again, in large part because seafarers face a mandatory
remittance level of 80 per cent of their base earnings, there is substan-
tial capital available for families, which needs to be administered and
spent. And according to the interviews, the vast majority of the “allot-
tees” or receivers of these funds are women (usually wives). In terms of
decision-making about spending, wives are often given much leeway.
For example, a 37-year-old junior officer with two children explained:
 Steven McKay 129

I give 60 percent [of my salary] to my family and 40 percent for

myself . . . . My wife and I decide on the allotment. She cannot just
decide by herself on the 60 percent just because I gave it to her. That
money was so difficult to earn. Pretend that you are not husband and
wife but friends doing a business. You should decide what to be spent
now and what should be spent later . . . . When I come home, she still
has a share from my 40 percent. After all, it was in the contract that
everything I own, she also owns.

A 50-year-old captain with two children went even further. In discussing

spending decisions regarding remittances, he noted:

my wife decides. If I would be the one to keep the money, I would not
be able to save. Our arrangement is that my wife is both the “madre”
and “padre de familia” so I do not know if I have money or not. I give
her all that I earn. I have trusted her for many years already. I trust her
100 percent. Before I complained that she was using up the money.
I did not know that she got educational plans for our children. Now
that it is taking me a long time to go on board again, at least I do not
have problems. She has foresight.

Finally, a 41-year-old senior officer with three sons said:

I remit 80 percent of my pay to my family. My wife decides [how to

spend it]. I am just working. Everything about the house she takes
care of it. I have a very good wife. Sometimes she would consult me
about our expenses. If possible, I would send her all of my salary and
not just 80 percent of it.

For wives, then, managing the household and the remittances may be a
way for them to expand their traditional gender roles. As noted, being
left in charge of the household and family often allows them (requires
them?) to be both madre and padre de familia. Although, clearly, their
managerial role does not threaten the providership role that their hus-
bands take and therefore does not completely disrupt traditional gender
relations, it does at least open up another avenue of agency of the
wives of migrant workers to participate in areas that might otherwise
be dominated by their husbands or by other men.
Finally, seafarer themselves, when at home, are often able to draw
on their resources to build connections with their family. Investments
in small businesses, such as rice milling or trading, retail trade or
130 Remittances as Gendered Processes

transportation, can allow seafarers to parlay their higher-than-average

earnings from migrant work into a way to spend more time with their
families and children. For example, one 34-year-old officer with one
child explained:

For instance your eldest is 18 years old, maybe the time you actually
spent with him is just less than five years. Yes you can talk to him
on the phone, etc. but you do not see him in person . . . . After con-
tract, I go home directly. I usually stay here from four to six months.
My company keeps on calling me to come back. Now, it has been two
years already since I last boarded. It is okay because here on-land, I am
also productive, unlike other seafarers . . . I have business on land and
I can be with my child.

Although seamen held generally conventional views of fatherhood,

these migrant fathers did not necessarily or simply accept an emotion-
ally detached role. Instead, they tried quite hard upon their return home
to re-establish emotional bonds with their children. As Parrenas (2008)
speculates, it seems that seamen’s ability to perform as “good providers”
can make it possible for them to transgress other gender roles. In fact,
many seamen break with gender role stereotypes and expand their
household duties when they are on vacation in order to build closer,
more intimate relations. One seafarer explained:

I could say that my relation with my children is affected because I am

often away. But I catch up whenever I am on vacation. I am always
with them. Wherever I am on training, they are with me. I always
give them advice. I allot one month just for them. I always time it
during summer vacations.

Speaking about returning home, a married bosun said: “I’ll be the one
to cook for my kids, go shopping, take them to school, stay home. I try
to do the things my wife does for nine months, to give her a break and
let her relax. I like to do those things for my kids.” Finally, a 45-year-
old second mate with two children took a similar approach in order to
maintain his relevance in the lives of his children:

when I arrive they’re excited, but if I’m staying for a long time, I’m
like nobody here. That’s why I make up for my absence. I wake up
in the morning to prepare their breakfast and I personally give them
their allowance and sometimes I approach them to tell their problems
and be open with me.
 Steven McKay 131

As these examples, suggest, gender role transgressions are not limited

to emotionally distant tasks, and they can include child-centred and
emotionally caring activities that help the seaman to re-connect with
his children and be a “good parent”, as well as a “good provider.”

Conclusions

The scholarship on gender and migration has been enlivened in recent

years by the increased study of masculinities, and the meanings and
impact of remittances. Yet the intersection of these debates has not
been fully explored. While much work has been done separately
on hegemonic masculinity, gender issues related to migrant working
women, and remittances as a form of development, few studies have
addressed directly and in concert issues of gender, migrant men and
remittances. In terms of the scholarship on remittances, some studies
in Southeast Asia and more broadly have identified “female migrant
as better savers and remitters than their male counterparts” (Rahman
and Fee, 2009: 112). Yet this study’s findings are more consistent with
other more detailed studies, particularly of the Philippines, that have
shown that Filipino male migrants remit more, “even when taking into
consideration earning differentials between the genders” (Semyonov
and Gorodzeisky, 2005: 45). In fact, Semyonov and Gorodzeisky (2005)
found that the income of households with men working overseas
was significantly higher than those with women migrant workers, and
that the difference is largely due to the higher level of men’s earning
and remittances. The case of seafaring – with its extremely gender-
segmented division of labour and uniquely high level of mandatory
remittances – clearly demonstrates why such broader gender dispari-
ties in the Philippines may exist. And seafarers’ explanations of their
spending and investments also support Semyonov and Gorodzeisky’s
(2005: 63) conclusion from statistical analysis that “the economic com-
mitment of fathers to the households and to their children is no lower
than the commitment of mothers”. Yet it is also clear from the inter-
views that remittances, earnings and spending patterns represent and
mean far more than simple material support to households. Economic
provision, as argued above, is considered to be the cornerstone of mature
Filipino masculinity, and seafarers’ ability to fulfil this traditional role
may in fact make it possible for them to go beyond it as well.
Thus in terms of gender theories, this study has attempted to more
fruitfully mine the intersection between masculinities, migration and
remittances by examining how migratory work helps to open up
opportunities for men to pursue multiple strategies towards securing
132 Remittances as Gendered Processes

a masculine identity. As Connell and Messershcmidt (2005: 841) note,

“ ‘masculinity’ represent[s] not a certain type of man, but, rather, a way
that men position themselves through discursive practices”. My anal-
ysis lays out such discursive and actual practices, and how a particular
group of men actively “do gender” through their interaction with family
members, through their spending and investments, and through partic-
ular actions that are made possible in part by their high level of earnings
and remittances.
What remain in questions is whether Filipino seamen might use their
status as both providers and masculine exemplars to help to influence
changing gender roles in the Philippines. While Filipino seamen are
able to fulfil the role of family provider, they often demonstrate a real
remorse for the emotional distance from their children and partners that
is created by their migratory work. Through transnational communi-
cation and upon their return, these men try hard to re-establish their
emotional links as part of what they consider to be essential to being
a “good father”. Here again, their middle-class position, which allows
them to better control their gender performances, may in fact open up
space to transcend traditional gender roles towards the development of
more emotionally engaged parenting.

Notes
1. This has been due in large part to the relative decrease in the number
of women going abroad, especially a dramatic reduction in the num-
ber of women entertainers going to Japan as well as a decline in the number
of domestics going abroad (Asis, 2008).
2. A much more detailed treatment of this historical process is part of a larger,
ongoing research project.
3. I develop more fully this nuanced construction of the gender order in a
separate article on the remasculinisation of the hero (McKay, 2011).
4. Again, the changing class background of seafarers creates some tension
between older, working-class models of masculinity and newer, more middle-
class or “professional” models of masculinity. I discuss the tensions between
these class models of masculinity in much more detail in another article
(McKay and Lucero-Prisno, 2012).

References
Amante, Margtas (2003) “Filipino Global Seafarers: A Profile”, draft report.
Cardiff, UK: Seafarer International Research Center, Cardiff University.
Ang, Alvin P., Guntur Sugiyarto and Shikha Jha (2009) “Remittances and House-
hold Behavior in the Philippines”, ADB Economics Working Paper Series
No. 188. December. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asia Development Bank.
 Steven McKay 133

Asia Pacific Mission for Migrant Filipinos (APMMF) n.d. “The Role and Pro-
cess of Remittances in the Labor Export Industry in the Philippines”,
Preliminary Report. Submitted to Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN),
http://www.apmigrants.org/research/Philippines/Research-preliminary output.
pdf, accessed on 1 June 2010.
Asis, Maruja (2008) “The Philippines”, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal
17(3 & 4): 349–378.
Bagong Bayani Foundation (2013) Bagong Bayani Awards, http://www.bbfi.com.
ph/bagong-bayani-awards/, accessed on 19 July 2013.
Banko Sentral Pilipinos (BSP) (2013) “Overseas Filipinos’ Cash Remittances by
Country by Source”, Central Bank of the Philippines, http://www.bsp.gov.ph/
statistics/spei_pub/Table%2034.pdf, accessed on 19 July 2013.
Batnitzky, Adina, Linda McDowell and Sarah Dyer (2009) “Flexible and Strategic
Masculinities: The Working Lives and Gendered Identities of Male Migrants in
London”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35(8): 1275–1293.
Brown, Carolyn (2006) “Race and the Construction of Working-Class Masculin-
ity in the Nigerian Coal Industry: The Initial Phase, 1914–1930”, International
Labor and Working-Class History 69: 35–56.
Choy, Catherine Ceniza (2003) Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino
American History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Connell, R. W. (1995) Masculinities. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Connell, R. W. (1998) “Masculinities and Globalization”, Men and Masculinities
1(1): 3–23.
Connell, R. W. and J. Messerschmidt (2005) “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking
the Concept”, Gender & Society 19(6): 829–859.
Connell, R. W. and J. Wood (2005) “Globalization and Business Masculinities”,
Men and Masculinities 7(4): 347–364.
Constable, Nicole (1997) Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Datta, K., C. McIlwaine, J. Herbert, Y. Evans and J. Wills (2008) “Mobile
Masculinities: Men, Migration and Low Paid Work in London”, Working Paper.
Department of Geography, Queen Mary University of London.
Ford, Michele and Lenore Lyons, Eds. (2012) Men and Masculinities in Southeast
Asia. London: Routledge Press.
Espana-Maram, Linda (2006) Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles’ Little Manila.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Guevarra, Anna (2010) Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational
Labor Brokering of Filipino Workers. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press.
Gutmann, Matthew (2007) The Meaning of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City.
Berkeley, CA, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
International Seafarers Action Center (ISAC) (2004) “Preliminary Study on
the Marginalization of Filipino Seafarers, 5 August 2004”, www.isac.org.ph,
accessed on 3 June 2008.
Kimmel, M., Hearn, J. and R. W. Connell, Eds. (2005) Handbook of Studies on Men
and Masculinities. London and New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Lamvik, Gunnar (2002) “The Filipino Seafarer: A Life between Sacrifice and Shop-
ping”, PhD dissertation. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and
Technology.
134 Remittances as Gendered Processes

Lan, Pei-Chia (2006) Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employ-
ers in Taiwan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Louie, K. and M. Low, (eds.) (2003) Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice
of Manhood in China and Japan. London: Routledge.
Mahler, Sarah and Patricia Pessar (2006) “Gender Matters: Ethnographers Bring
Gender from the Periphery toward the Core of Migration Studies”, International
Migration Review 40(1): 27–63.
Maravillas (2005) “Maritime Profession and Impact of Remittances”, unpub-
lished PhD dissertation. Iloilo City, the Philippines: John B. Lacson Foundation
Maritime University.
Margold, Jane (1995) “Narratives of Masculinity and Transnational Migra-
tion: Filipino Workers in the Middle East,” in A. Ong and M. Peletz (eds.).
Bewitching Women, Pious Men. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
pp. 274–298.
McKay, Steven (2011) “Re-masculinizing the Hero: Filipino Migrant Men and
Gender Privilege”, Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series 172 – National
University of Singapore.
McKay, Steven and Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III (2012) “Masculinities Afloat:
Filipino Seafarers and the Situational Performance of Manhood”, in Michele
Ford and Lenore Lyons (eds.) Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. London:
Routledge, pp. 20–37.
National Maritime Polytechnic (NMP) (2006) “Stress Management Profile of
Filipino Seafarers”, http://www.nmp.gov.ph/, accessed on 10 Feburary 2012.
National Seamen Board (NSB) (1976) Annual Report. Department of Labor,
Republic of the Philippines.
National Seamen Board (NSB) (1982) Annual Report. Department of Labor,
Republic of the Philippines.
National Statistics Office (NSO) (2012) “Table 1, Number and Percentage Dis-
tribution of Overseas Filipino Workers by Type and Region: 2010 and 2011”,
2011 Survey on Overseas Filipinos, http://www.census.gov.ph/sites/default/files/
attachments/hsd/specialrelease/Tab1.pdf, accessed on 19 July 2013.
Osella, Filippo and Caroline Osella (2000) “Migration, Money and Masculinity in
Kerala”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 6: 117–133.
Osella, Filippo and Caroline Osella (2006) Men and Masculinities in South Asia.
London, New York and Delhi: Anthem Press.
Paap, Kris (2006) Working Construction: Why White Working-Class Men Put
Themselves – and the Labor Movement – in Harm’s Way. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University/ILR Press.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar (2005) Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families
and Gendered Woes. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar (2008) “Transnational Fathering: Gendered Conflicts,
Distant Disciplining and Emotional Gaps”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration
Studies 34(7): 1057–1072.
Pingol, Alicia Tadeo (2001) Remaking Masculinities: Identity, Power and Gender
Dynamics in Families with Migrant Wives and Househusbands. Quezon City:
University Center for Women’s Studies/University of the Philippines.
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) (2013a) Overseas
Employment Statistics 2008–2012, http://www.poea.gov.ph/stats/2012_stats.pdf,
accessed on 19 July 2013.
 Steven McKay 135

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) (2013b) “All Manning

Agencies with Valid License”. Status of Recruitment Agencies, http://www.poea.
gov.ph/cgi-bin/agList.asp?mode=actSB, accessed on 19 July 2013.
Rodriguez, Robyn Magalit (2010) Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State
Brokers Labor to the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rubio, Ritchie and Robert-Jay Green (2009) “Filipino Masculinity and Psycholog-
ical Distress: A Preliminary Comparison Between Gay and Heterosexual Men”,
Sexuality Research & Social Policy 6(3): 61–75.
Semyonov, Moshe and Anastasia Gorodzeisky (2005) “Labor Migration,
Remittances and Household Income: A Comparison between Filipino and
Filipina Overseas Workers”, The International Migration Review 39(1): 45–68.
Tyner, James (2000) “Global Cities and Circuits of Labor: The Case of Manila, the
Philippines”, Professional Geographer 52(1): 61–74.
West, Candace and Don Zimmerman (1987) “Doing Gender”, Gender and Society
1(2): 125–151.