By – Anisha Jyotirmayee

Abstract

Domestic work is considered one of the most vital yet under-recognised labor. With the help of domestic workers, houses stay clean, childcare and eldercare are fulfilled. Despite this, these workers still lack legal and social recognition in the labor industry. Workers are paid less, abused and treated differently. This article analyses what these practices are and why they exist. This article further takes into account caste, class, and gender, hierarchical inequality that this profession accounts for. 

Introduction

Domestic work refers to the work performed in or for a household or households. It stands in contradiction to the modern economies. It is one of the crucial aspects of the reproduction of households and the labor market, and, at the same time, one of the least acknowledged and unprotected forms of labor. A domestic worker refers to an employee of private households providing them with services, such as cleaning, cooking, childcare, and elder care. 

Currently, there are about 75.6 million domestic workers worldwide, who make up 4.5 per cent of the total workforce, with the majority being women and immigrants. Domestic workers have an important part to play in the way the family, society, and economy run. This social reproduction can be seen in everyday work, such as taking care of children, elders, schooling, and providing emotional support. According to Nancy Fraser, this unpaid or underpaid labor forms the essential “hidden abode” that builds all capitalist economies. Even though they offer important services and support for families, they operate in a vulnerable situation where they are subjected to different kinds of violence and discrimination.

Domestic Work and Society

Historically, domestic work has been excluded from labor protections that apply to workers in the formal sector. In 2021, the International Labor Organization found that 81 per cent were informally employed, indicating legal and enforcement gaps. The conditions of domestic employment in many nations are marked by a lack of formalization, verbal agreements, uncertain income, and no proper supervision. In fact, given that the place of work is a private residence gives disadvantaged legal and social status to domestic employment.

Domestic workers are employed in private homes; hence, they are mostly invisible as workers and are isolated from the labor force. Scholars have consistently argued that this historical devaluation of domestic work is deeply rooted in the gendered division of labor. The association between domestic labor and femininity has been explored by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild. As shown by her research on the concepts of emotional labor and second shift, she explains that women are supposed to be socially expected to take up the responsibility of managing the chores within their households and other jobs, even when they are employed. The idea is that there is a societal perception that domestic work is an extension of the innate abilities of women. Therefore, it requires minimal expertise, which leads to low pay.

According to political theorist Joan Tronto, the marginalization of care work is due to the fact that society views care and dependency as belonging to those social groups who have lower status and power, especially women, migrants, and other racialized groups. The reason for giving low value to care work reflects a broader pattern in the hierarchy of gender, class, and citizenship, not just in the importance of the work.

Gender, Caste, Class, and Social Hierarchies

India is a country with 698.29 million female population as per CNN, 32.8% of which are engaged in the labor force. The workforce engaged in domestic labor is mainly female, making domestic work important for understanding the intersection of gender and labor inequality. Women’s labor has historically been concentrated in care-related occupations that are associated with lower wages, lower social status, and limited legal protections. Domestic work has reproduced these patterns by extending gendered expectations of caregiving and household maintenance into the sphere of paid employment. 

In the Indian context, another crucial societal aspect comes into the intersection, caste. Caste remains a crucial factor shaping the organization of domestic labor and the experiences of the domestic workers. B.R. Ambedkar has emphasized that caste functions not merely as a system of social stratification, but also as a division of labor, and more significantly, a division of laborers. Historically, communities like the Dalits, positioned at the lower end of the hierarchy or out of the hierarchy, were assigned occupations associated with cleaning, sanitation, and servitude. Contemporary domestic work exists within the modern labor market, but traces of these attitudes continue to influence employer attitudes and practices. Most domestic workers in urban India come from Dalit, Adivasi, OBCs, and economically marginalized communities. These communities face vulnerability in the labor market not only based on their economic status, but also on social prejudices. Some houses that hire people from these lower castes, workers have been given separate utensils, denied access to common dining spaces, or discouraged from using certain household facilities. Some workers even get suspected of stealing, even without any such behavior. This intersection intensifies disadvantages for women as they face “multiple marginalization“, where discrimination based on caste, gender, and class operates simultaneously.

Class inequalities also intensify workers’ vulnerability. Domestic workers often rely on their employers for an income. They may not have other job options which  makes it difficult for them to negotiate pay or working conditions. 

Everyday Exploitation and Labor Insecurity

Exploitation in domestic work often manifests through routine practices rather than extreme abuses. Some of these could show in the form of long working hours, inadequate wages, denial of leave, delayed payments, or expectations of constant availability and doing more work than expected. These conditions have been normalized when employers view domestic labor as a personal service rather than an employment relationship governed by rights and obligations. The fact that there are no written contracts for workers makes domestic workers feel insecure about their jobs. When there are no papers to prove what was agreed on, domestic workers have a difficult time showing that they were not paid correctly. They also face issues arguing against being let go or asking for what they are legally supposed to get. Some common exclusions that happen a lot are not being allowed in parts of the house, not being able to leave the house being watched all the time or being treated badly make domestic workers feel like they are not as good as everyone else. 

Case Study

A study focusing on female domestic workers in Chandigarh shows the day-to-day realities of this labor force. Workers often balance their own households while commuting to 4 to 5 different homes daily. Despite hard manual labor and a lack of sick leave, workers often earn merely Rs. 4,000 per month. Workers have negligible job security, zero provident fund (PF) benefits, and no social security. 

Domestic workers are not included in the labor laws because household work is not legally recognized as a standard workplace. Despite attempts like the 2019 National Domestic Worker Policy, India still lacks a dedicated central law for this sector. Unregistered placement agencies often traffic marginalized women from states like Jharkhand, trapping them in debt-bondage and taking high commission fees. The majority of workers are Dalits, tribal minorities, or women from structurally oppressed backgrounds who are driven by financial necessity and trapped in informal arrangements.

Conclusion

Exploitation of domestic workers is not just an individual incident but a result of larger structural issues. Improvement in the condition of domestic workers requires legal and social changes. Internationally agreed standards, as proposed by organisations like the International Labour Organization, place importance on providing domestic workers with decent working conditions, equitable wages, fair working hours, and social protection.

However, this is not enough because there needs to be a change in people’s perception towards domestic labor, which has been undervalued throughout history due to its assumed nature of unskilled or naturally feminine labor. Social acceptance of the economic value of care work can play a pivotal role in taking domestic work out of the fringe of labor policy.

Author’s Bio:

Anisha Jyotirmayee is a student of Journalism and Media Studies at O.P Jindal Global University. Starting with an inclined interest towards literature, she started writing research-based articles that defined and worked with real social issues.