of the Philippines became increasingly dependent on labour export; in 1978 labour-export recruiting agencies were privatised, and became a cornerstone of the economy. Increasing labour export from the Philippines coincided with the economic rise of Hong Kong during the late 1970s and early 1980s. When the People's Republic of China implemented wide-reaching economic reform in the late 1970s and initiated trade with other countries, Hong Kong became mainland China's biggest investor. Labour-intensive Hong Kong industries moved to the mainland, and high-profit service industries in the territory (such as design, marketing and finance) expanded dramatically. To deal with the resulting labour shortage and increase in labour costs, the female labour force was mobilised. Two-income families sought help to manage their households, creating a demand for domestic workers. Female participation in the workforce increased, from 47.5 percent in 1982 to 54.7 percent in 2013. Families began hiring foreign domestic workers from the Philippines, with the number of workers steadily increasing during the 1980s and 1990s. Prevalence and demographics Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are considered attractive destinations by those seeking employment as domestic workers. According to Quartz, Hong Kong has one of the highest densities of foreign domestic workers in the world and its pay scale is a benchmark for other jurisdictions. Since the mid-1970s, when the foreign-domestic-helper policy was initiated, the number of workers has increased to around 300,000. At the end of 2013, there was an average of one foreign domestic worker for every eight households overall; in households with children, the average is one for every three. Foreign domestic helpers are about 10 percent of the working population. In December 2014 the number of migrant workers employed as helpers was over 330,000, 4.6 percent of the total population; the vast majority were female. Before the 1980s and increased prosperity on the mainland, Chinese domestic workers were dominant. Until the 1990s, workers then came primarily from the Philippines; the percentage is now shifting from Philippine workers to Indonesian and other nationalities. During the 1990s Indonesia and Thailand followed the Filipino model of labour export to deal with domestic economic crises, and Hong Kong families began hiring workers from those countries as well. The Indonesians provided competition, since those workers were often prepared to accept half the minimum wage. According to the Immigration Department, in 1998 there were 140,357 Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong and 31,762 from Indonesia. In 2005,