Moving maids: dynamics of domestic service and development
| Autor | Namino M. Glantz |
| Cargo | Universidad de Arizona, Estados Unidos y Centro de Investigaciones en Salud, Comitán, Chiapas, México. |
| Páginas | 83-102 |
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The relationship between domestic service1 and development has been little explored.2 How might development (meaning economic growth and modernization) influence and be influenced by domestic service (loosely defined as housework and childcare performed by a non-relative for compensation)? In Part I, I introduce an array of potential connections between economic development and domestic service, followed by general trends in the magnitude of the domestic service industry. Page 84
In Part II, I briefly discuss characteristics of domestic servants and service. Moving beyond generalizations, I dedicate Part III to descriptions of patterns in domestic service, economic growth, modernization, and migration in three distinct contexts: Malaysia, Zambia, and Canada. The case studies reveal both unique and shared dynamics, and pose questions about servant-state relationships, racial relations, gender role (re-)construction, class and notions of modernity, and how these issues interface with development. Concluding observations in Part IV include the reiteration of trends evidenced in these (and other) case studies, as well as the concerns they spawn.
A common hypothesis is that economic growth goes hand-in-hand with a shrinking domestic service industry for at least three reasons:3
- Economic growth increases jobs, allows for higher income, and diversifies work opportunities. Compared to other jobs, domestic service becomes less desirable due to its low pay, long hours, relations of dependency and paternalism, abuse, informality, etcetera.
- Economic growth establishes material and technical conditions that may simplify housework. For example, large homes are substituted by smaller apartments. Urbanization brings closer services and supplies that aid in housework, such as laundry, food preparation, and childcare. Accompanying advances in infrastructure (e.g. electricity, piped and heated water) allow for use of blenders, stoves, washing machines, dish washers, microwave ovens, and vacuum cleaners, all said to make housework easier.
- Cultural changes that often accompany development may reduce the incidence of domestic service. For example, smaller households may not need as much domestic support, and employing a domestic servant may become "old-fashioned" or "politically incorrect".
Other economic growth dynamics work against the more growth-less service hypothesis: Page 85
- Increased urbanization and migration to urban areas often accompany economic growth, and it is precisely in urban areas and among migrant workers where domestic service flourishes.4
- Domestic work may provide a means of incorporating employees into a newly instituted world of wage labor, and of "modernizing" individuals from rural or less developed regions.5
- Women's growing participation in the work force may require domestic help. Even with modernization, some household tasks, like cleaning and childcare, cannot be accomplished simply by buying or using manufactured goods. These activities remain just as - or more - labor intensive, given class-based trends toward environmentalism, away from convenience foods and technological fixes, toward natural fibers, etc. At the same time, standards of hygiene, home cleanliness, and childcare may increase, making these tasks even more time-consuming.6
- The demographic transition may increase need for home-based assistance for the elderly.7
- Shifts in thinking - especially regarding what it means to be "modern" - may incite people to hire domestic servants. Families may employ domestic help in order to dedicate non-working hours to activities that have become more valued during the course of modernization (e.g. middle class leisure activities).8 Servants may symbolize status, and/or allow people to continue a family tradition (of employing domestic help) in the face of sweeping social changes.9
The prevalence of domestic service over the past few decades has at least remained steady and in some contexts even increased, challenging assumptions of its decline with modernization and economic growth. Social scientists and economists have evidenced this trend in domestic service-consuming countries, including advanced industrialized economies (such as Canada, the United States, Page 86 and Britain), newly industrialized countries of Asia (like Malaysia), and oil-rich nations of the Middle East.10 In a number of developing countries (including Zambia),11 persisting and even growing domestic service rates also defy predictions of its demise. Statistics from domestic servant-supplying countries, including many Latin American and Caribbean nations, also indicate steady and swelling ranks of domestic servants, accounting for impressive proportions of their labor force.12
While domestic service refers to a highly historical and ever-changing phenomenon, a few general characteristics may be gleaned regarding domestic workers, domestic service, and migration.
In some places, domestic service is identifiable with a fairly homogeneous group of individuals, such as migrant women of color in the United States. In others, like Britain, there is no such tight association between ethnicity and domestic labor.13 Domestic service does tend to be gendered. In most places, it is almost exclusively a female occupation, although in a few regions (such as Zambia), it is a nearly completely male activity. The age of domestic servants varies, although there are regional and historical patterns of higher frequencies for certain age ranges, making children, adolescents, young adults, or older adults preferred employees. Limited formal education is a near constant; however, there are instances of educated individuals who perform domestic service despite the deskilling it implies (such is the case for some foreign workers in Canada). Many domestic servants are from poor, marginalized families.
In some places (such as Malaysia and Argentina), few domestic servants work for more than one year for the same employer, while in others (like Zambia), many spend years - even a lifetime - working in one household. Some regions' domestic workers tend to also be heads of their own households (as in Zambia), while servants in other places (such as Malaysia and Canada) are prevented from Page 87 forming and/or living with their own families. In either case, basic needs in their own homes tend to remain unsatisfied, such that domestic workers make crucial contributions to their own household sustenance. Domestic servants are subject to paternalism, dependency, ambiguous roles, abuse, long hours, and low salaries. Few have retirement benefits, medical service, or other social benefits.14 Recent literature has begun to focus on the organization of domestic servants and the domestic service sector, yet the obstacles to such activity abound.15
Domestic service assumes a variety of forms. Historically, a very common arrangement has been live-in work, the servant living where s/he works, and therefore available during long and imprecise workdays for a wide range of tasks. The live-in domestic usually earns a salary, supplemented by rent, food, utilities, and clothing. In contrast, live-out or day work means sleeping in one's own home. Servants in this arrangement may earn just food, a salary only, or a combination of the two. A third form is daily or hourly commercial contracting in different homes. These workers usually have relatively concrete tasks (such as cleaning, ironing, cooking) in each place and are paid in wages. Commercial contracting can be more attractive to workers who have their own children, while others usually live-in.16
Over time, live-in domestic work has tended to decrease while the other two forms increase. Reasons for shrinking demand for live-in workers include economic cost, simplification of housework, reduced household size and living space, desire for privacy, and urban lifestyles. Reasons for decreased supply include preferences for jobs offering more freedom and social respect. Despite this tendency, recent arrivals to urban areas working in domestic service are nearly always found in the live-in arrangement, and in many places the shift from live-in to live-out or contracting is very difficult.17 Page 88
Domestic work is much more prevalent in urban areas than rural zones. In urban labor markets, domestic service plays an important role as a point of entry for migrants from agricultural or less developed areas of the country or from other (usually) less developed countries. Migrants from poor areas - who arrive in cities with little knowledge of work and lifestyle, and are often reliant upon the help of relatives and friends - tend to find the easiest opening to the labor market in domestic work. In regions where urbanization outpaces industrialization, and in urban areas without infrastructure or employment for all recent immigrants, the domestic service industry tends to be strong.18 Migration into domestic service in many cases becomes serial or chain migration, meaning that one person already working arranges for friends and family in her/his home country to follow.19
Domestic servant migration must be seen within the context of global migration, which has accelerated due to changes in global capitalism and...
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