Cross-Border Domestic Service for Chinese Families in Thailand: Demand, Bottlenecks, and the Grey Market of the "Imported Ayi"

Since the late 2010s, Thailand has become a major destination for new Chinese migrants, including corporate employees, entrepreneurs, and middle-class families who relocate for their children's international education. This article examines why these households struggle to obtain domestic help, and why a growing number of them turn to agencies that recruit domestic workers ("ayi") from mainland China. Using qualitative documentary analysis of Thai and Chinese legal texts, labour and immigration regulations, official statistics, prior academic studies, and media and community sources, the article makes three arguments. First, demand is structural: household arrangements centred on an accompanying mother, the absence of grandparent support, and expectations about food, child-rearing, and homework supervision create a need for culturally specific care. Second, the local market cannot easily meet this need because of language barriers, divergent household norms, and low trust, even though Thai and neighbouring-country workers are available and, since 2024, better protected by Thai law. Third, the cross-border "imported ayi" solution sits in a legal grey zone. Thailand's work-permit system and occupational restrictions offer no routine route for a Chinese national to work as a domestic worker, while China's rules on overseas labour services prohibit sending workers abroad under tourist or other non-work pretexts. The result is a high-cost, broker-driven market that shifts legal, financial, and personal risks onto both families and workers. The article concludes with recommendations for families, agencies, and policymakers in both countries.

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