The usual but untested assumption is that the employer’s concern about the foreign domestic worker buttresses the worker’s life quality. To clarify how the assumption fares, this study analysed data from a survey of 1514 foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong, China. Results revealed that, contrary to the usual assumption, the employer’s concern for the worker posed a negative effect on the worker’s life quality. These results imply that cultural discrepancies between the worker and employer make the employer’s concern detrimental to the worker’s life quality. This detriment is explicable with exchange theory.

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