Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:34:54.794Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Macro-Level Determinants of Paid Domestic Labour Prevalence: A Cross-National Analysis of Seventy-Four Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2014

Merita Jokela
Merita Jokela*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Research, University of Turku E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The growing demand for domestic workers has been linked to several global developments, such as an ageing population, income inequality, the growth of women entering labour markets, migration and changes in the provision of care. However, empirical quantitative evidence for these associations is still scarce. This study examines how macro-level factors related to care needs (female employment rates and proportion of aged population), labour markets (proportion of migrants and vulnerable employment) and economic characteristics (gross domestic product, income inequality and level of urbanisation) are associated with the prevalence of paid domestic labour across seventy-four countries. Data are derived from the statistics compiled by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Results show that a higher prevalence of paid domestic workers is particularly associated with greater income inequality, but also with a higher proportion of migrants. The association with income inequality remained unchanged after controlling for six other variables related to the demand and supply of domestic services. These findings suggest that income inequality is a crucial factor in determining the proportion of domestic workers in the labour force.

Keywords

Domestic workersincome inequalitycare workmigrationcomparative research
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 385 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, B. (2000) Doing The Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour, London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Anttonen, A. and Sipilä, J. (1996) ‘European Social Care Services: is it possible to identify Models?’, Journal of European Social Policy, 6, 87, 87–100.Google Scholar
Bauer, G. and Österle, A. (2013) ‘Migrant care labour: the commodification and redistribution of care and emotional work’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 3, 461–73.Google Scholar
Bettio, F. and Plantenga, J. (2004) ‘Comparing care regimes in Europe’, Feminist Economics, 10, 1, 85–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettio, F., Simonazzi, A. and Villa, P. (2006) ‘Change in care regimes and female migration: the “care drain” in the Mediterranean’, Journal of European Social Policy, 16, 3, 271–85.Google Scholar
Blofield, M. (2012) Care Work and Class: Domestic Workers’ Struggle for Equal Rights in Latin America, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Cangiano, A. (2014) ‘Elder care and migrant labor in Europe: a demographic outlook’, Population and Development Review, 40, 1, 131–54.Google Scholar
Cangiano, A. and Shutes, I. (2010) ‘Ageing, demand for care and the role of migrant care workers in the UK’, Journal of Population Ageing, 3, 1–2, 39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaplin, D. (1978) ‘Domestic service and industrialization’, Comparative Studies in Sociology, 1, 97–127.Google Scholar
Chen, M. A. (2011) ‘Recognizing domestic workers, regulating domestic work: conceptual, measurement, and regulatory challenges’, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 23, 1, 167–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colombo, F., Llena-Nozal, A., Mercier, J. and Tjadens, F. (2011) Help Wanted? Providing and Paying for Long-Term Care, OECD Health Policy Studies, Paris: OECD Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coser, L. A. (1973) ‘Servants: the obsolescence of an occupational role’, Social Forces, 52, 1, 31–40.Google Scholar
Courtis, C. and Pacecca, M. I. (2014) ‘Domestic work and international migration in Latin America: exploring trajectories of regional migrant women in domestic service in Argentina’, Women's Studies International Forum, 46, 24–32.Google Scholar
D’Souza, A. (2010) Moving towards Decent Work for Domestic Workers: An Overview of the ILO's Work, Working Paper 2/2010, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Dahl, H. M., Keränen, M. and Kovalainen, A. (eds.) (2011) Europeanization, Care and Gender: Global Complexities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, B. and Hochschild, A. R. (2002) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, New York: Holt Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1999) Social Foundations of Post-Industrial Economies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gavanas, A. (2013) ‘Migrant domestic workers, social network strategies and informal markets for domestic services in Sweden’, Women's Studies International Forum, 36, 54–64.Google Scholar
Gil Araujo, S. and González-Fernández, T. (2014) ‘International migration, public policies and domestic work’, Women's Studies International Forum, 46, 13–23.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. (1983) ‘Women and class analysis: in defense of the conventional view’, Sociology, 17, 4, 465–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurung, S. H. (2009) ‘Nepali female migrants and informalization of domestic care work: service or servitude?’, Journal of Workplace Rights, 14, 3, 375–96.Google Scholar
Hochschild, A. R. (2000) ‘Global care chains and emotional surplus value’, in Hutton, W. and Giddens, A. (eds.), On the Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2001) Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
ILO (2009) Guide to the new Millennium Development Goals Employment Indicators: Including the Full Set of Decent Work Indicators, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
ILO (2010) Global Employment Trends January 2010, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
ILO (2011) Global and Regional Estimates on Domestic Workers, ILO Domestic work policy brief, No. 4, Conditions of Work and Employment Programme, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
ILO (2012) Global Employment Trends 2010: Preventing a Deeper Jobs Crisis, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
ILO (2013) Domestic Workers across the World: Global and Regional Statistics and the Extent of Legal Protection, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
ILO–UNDP (2009) Decent Work in Latin America and the Caribbean: Work and Family: Towards New Forms of Reconciliation with Social Co-Responsibility, Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Jacka, T. and Gaetano, A. M. (2004) On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, New York, Chichester: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. (2000) ‘Nonstandard employment relations: part-time, temporary and contract work’, Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 341–65.Google Scholar
Kilkey, M. (2010) ‘Men and domestic labor: a missing link in the global care chain’, Men and Masculinities, 13, 65, 126–49.Google Scholar
Kuznesof, E. (1989) ‘A history of domestic service in Spanish America, 1492–1980’, in Chaney, E. M. and García Castro, M. (eds.), Muchachas No More: Household Workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
León, M. (2010) ‘Migration and care work in Spain: the domestic sector revisited’, Social Policy and Society, 9, 3, 409–18.Google Scholar
Lister, R., Williams, F., Anttonen, A., Bussemaker, J., Gerhard, U., Heinen, J., Johansson, S., Leira, A., Siim, B., Tobio, C. and Gavanas, A. (2007) Gendering Citizenship in Western Europe: New Challenges for Citizenship Research in a Cross-National Context, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Lutz, H. (2002) ‘At your service madam! The globalization of domestic service’, Feminist Review, 70, 1, 89–104.Google Scholar
Lutz, H. (2008) ‘Introduction: migrant domestic workers in Europe’, in Lutz, H. (ed.), Migration and Domestic Work: A European Perspective on a Global Theme, Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Lutz, H. (2011) The New Maids: Transnational Women and the Care Economy, London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Mahon, R. and Robinson, F. (2011) (eds.) Feminist Ethics and Social Policy: Towards a New Global Political Economy of Care, Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Milkman, R., Reese, E. and Roth, B. (1998) ‘The macrosociology of paid domestic labor’, Work and Occupations, 25, 4, 483–510.Google Scholar
Morgan, K. J. (2005) ‘The “production” of child care: how labor markets shape social policy and vice versa’, Social Politics, 12, 2, 243–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakano Glenn, E. (1992) ‘From servitude to service work: historical continuities in the racial division of paid reproductive labor’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 18, 1, 1–43.Google Scholar
Näre, L. (2010) ‘Sri Lankan men working as cleaners and carers: negotiating masculinity in Naples’, Men and Masculinities, 13, 1, 65–86.Google Scholar
OECD (2008) Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Panam, A., Caouette, T., Kyaw Zaw, K. M. and Punpuing, S. (2004) Migrant Domestic Workers: From Burma to Thailand, Bangkok: Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University.Google Scholar
Parreñas, R. (2000) ‘Migrant Filipina domestic workers and the international division of reproductive labor’, Gender and Society, 14, 4, 560–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parreñas, R. (2001) Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (2010) OFW Deployment per Country and Skill – New Hire, Full Year 2010 (Mandaluyong), http://www.poea.gov.ph/stats/2010%20Deployment%20by%20Destination,%20Occupation%20and%20Sex%202010%20-%20New%20hires.pdf.Google Scholar
Pollert, A. and Charlwood, A. (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work Work’, Employment and Society, 23, 2, 343–62.Google Scholar
Razavi, S. (2007) The Political and Social Economy of Care in a Development Context: Conceptual Issues, Research Questions and Policy Options, Gender and Development Programme Paper Number 3, Geneva: United Nationals Research Institute for Social Development.Google Scholar
Razavi, S. (2011) ‘Rethinking care in a development context: an introduction’, Development and Change, 42, 4, 873–903.Google Scholar
Razavi, S. and Staab, S. (2010) ‘Underpaid and overworked: a cross-national perspective on care workers’, International Labour Review, 149, 4, 407–22.Google Scholar
Rogers, J. (2009) ‘Cambios en el servicio domestic en América Latina’, in Valenzuela, M. E. and Mora, C. (eds.), Trabajo doméstico: Un largo camino hacia el trabajo decente, Santago de Chile: Organización Internacional de Trabajo.Google Scholar
Rollins, J. (1985) Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Saraceno, C. and Keck, W. (2010) ‘Can we identify intergenerational policy regimes in Europe?’, European Societies, 12, 5, 675–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarti, R. (2006) ‘Conclusion, domestic service and European identity’, in Pasleau, A. and Schopp, I. (eds.), Proceedings of the Servant Project, volume 5, Liège: University of Liège, pp. 195–284.Google Scholar
Sarti, R. (2010) ‘Fighting for masculinity: male domestic workers, gender, and migration in Italy from the late nineteenth century to the present’, Men and Masculinities, 13, 16, 16–43.Google Scholar
Sassen, S. (1988) The Mobility of Labor and Capital: A Study in International Investment and Labor Flow, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sassen, S. (2001) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sassen, S. and Portes, A. (1987) ‘Making it underground: comparative material on the informal sector in western market economies’, American Journal of Sociology, 93, 1, 30–61.Google Scholar
Scrinzi, F. (2010) ‘Masculinities and the international division of care: migrant male domestic workers in Italy and France’, Men and Masculinities, 13, 16, 44–64.Google Scholar
Schwenken, H. and Heimeshoff, L. M. (2011) Domestic Workers Count: Global Data on an Often Invisible Sector, Kassel: Kassel University Press.Google Scholar
Shutes, I. and Chiatti, C. (2012) ‘Migrant labour and the marketization of care for older people: the employment of migrant care workers by families and service providers’, Journal of European Social Policy, 22, 4, 392–405.Google Scholar
Staab, S. and Hill Maher, K. (2006) ‘The dual discourse about Peruvian domestic workers in Santiago de Chile: class, race, and a nationalist project’, Latin American Journal of Politics and Society, 48, 1, 87–116.Google Scholar
Stefoni, E. C. (2009) ‘Migración, género y servicio doméstico. Mujeres peruanas en Chile’, in Valenzuela, M. E. and Mora, C. (eds.), Trabajo doméstico: Un largo camino hacia el trabajo decente, Santago de Chile: Organización Internacional de Trabajo.Google Scholar
Stigler, G. J. (1946) Domestic Workers in the United States, 1900–1940, Occasional Paper 24, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Suleman, F. (2014) ‘The employment relationship in an (almost) structureless labour market: the case of domestic work’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Advance Access doi:10.1093/cje/beu018.Google Scholar
Thomson, M. (2009) ‘Workers not maids – organising household workers in Mexico’, Gender and Development, 17, 2, 281–93.Google Scholar
Triandafyllidou, A. (ed.) (2013) Irregular Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe: Who Cares?, Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Tronto, J. (2006) ‘Vicious and virtuous circles of care: when decent caring privileges social irresponsibility’, in Hamington, M. and Miller, D. (eds.), Socializing Care, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Tronto, J. (2011) ‘Privatizing neo-colonialism: migrant domestic care workers, partial citizenship and responsibility’, in Dahl, H. M., Keränen, M. and Kovalainen, A. (eds.), Europeanization, Care and Gender: Global Complexities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
TUC (2008) Hard Work, Hidden Lives: The Full Report of the Commission on Vulnerable Employment, London: TUC.Google Scholar
UNRISD (2010) Combating Poverty and Inequality, Geneva: UNRISD.Google Scholar
Van Hooren, F. (2010) ‘When families need immigrants: the exceptional position of migrant domestic workers and care assistants in Italian immigration policy’, Bulletin of Italian Politics, 2, 2, 21–38.Google Scholar
Vanek, J., Chen, M. A. and Raveendran, G. (2012) A Guide to Obtaining Data on Types of Informal Workers in Official Statistics: Domestic Workers, Home-Based Workers, Street Vendors and Waste Pickers, Wiego Statistical brief No. 8, http://wiego.org/sites/wiego.org/files/publications/files/Vanek_WIEGO_SB8.pdf [accessed 23.09.2014].Google Scholar
Widding Isaksen, L. (2010) Global Care Work: Gender and Migration in Nordic Societies, Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (2011) ‘Care, migration and citizenship: migration and home-based care in Europe’, in Dahl, H. M., Keränen, M. and Kovalainen, A. (eds.), Europeanization, Care and Gender: Global Complexities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (2012) ‘Converging variations in migrant care work in Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy, 22, 4, 363–76.Google Scholar
Williams, F. and Gavanas, A. (2008) ‘The intersection of childcare regimes and migration regimes: a three-country study’, in Lutz, H. (eds.), Migration and Domestic Work: A European Perspective on a Global Theme, Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Yeates, N. (2011) ‘Going global: the transnationalization of care’, Development and Change, 42, 4, 1109–30.Google Scholar
Yeoh, B. S. A. and Huang, S. (2010) ‘Foreign domestic workers and home-based care for elders in Singapore’, Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 22, 1, 69–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zechner, M. (2010) ‘Global care and Finnish social policy’, in Widding Isaksen, L. (eds.), Global Care Work: Gender and Migration in Nordic Societies, Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Google Scholar