Financial Resilience and Mental Health

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many migrant domestic workers have increasingly faced  a variety of social and financial pressures. Their unique living and working situations have impacted their mental health even further and exposed them to additional risks:

• Financial uncertainty: due to employer job loss or relocation, increased debts, lack of savings or emergency funds.
• Financial strain: greater expenses to purchase test kits, medicine, face masks, hygiene supplies and still an increased pressure to send money back home to support family members who continue to be affected by the crisis.
• Increased stress: longer working hours providing vital care to employers' families, limited days off (MDWs are isolated and have no access to friends and social networks) and concerns of being test positive for COVID-19.

“Being financially literate, as well as practicing good mental health hygiene can help build your financial resilience and lessen the chances of you losing money in the long term”- Enrich Mental Health Habit Builder, 2022.