Conceptualising Paid Domestic Work

This chapter lays the foundations of the book by first defining the work that the book intends to interrogate and unpacking the angst around it in some quarters of Western society, focusing on the feminist literature where such concerns are evident. Next, the chapter highlights theoretical contradictions and tensions in the literature and the assumptions underlying them, for instance, the work is a problem primarily between women. By drawing attention to some gaps and silences in the invaluable contribution made byprior research tounderstandings of the historically and socially constructed complexities of exploitation in paid domestic work, the chapterargues that the prevailing Western theories of this work are limited by their restricted focus on gender and race as the primary analytical categories.A more inclusive and globally relevant feminist approach would have an equivalent focus on class (and caste).

Concluding the Book, Continuing the Journey

The final chapterreflects on the situatedness of the knowledge presented in this book and its relevance to the existing literature and the angst around outsourced cleaning. The implications of the book’s argument for an inclusive, cross-cultural feminist theory of paid domestic work are summed up. The chapter then concludes that the unease around paid domestic work and the gaps in the research prevent recognition of the fact that the exploitation in this work is not fixed and stable, but contingent on certain societal assumptions of ourselves, others and work. The issue of concern for a scholar of gender and sociology is not just that some women are doing the demeaning work of/for other women but is also the classed and casteised evolution of the very meanings of work across cultural contexts.

The Occupational Relations of Domestic Cleaning as Work and Labour

This chapter shows how cultural injustices obstruct service-providers’efforts to do cleaning as work. When the work is done as labour, therelationship is substantially unequal because of some combination of class,class–caste, gender and socioeconomic (and racial) disparities, and becausethe work done is considered low status. That is, both the work and workerare stigmatised. The worker often harbours ‘ressentiment’When cleaning is done as work, there will be a friendly work relationshipthat can be located within wider work relationships, but participatoryparity between the service-user and service-provider can be hampered byservice-users’ classed actions that inadvertently or intentionally retrenchhousework as low-value ‘women’s work’. For instance, feeling guilty aboutoutsourcing housecleaning or assuming that the service-provider needshelp in recognising their rights as workers. Such injustices as practisedin relation to commodified ‘women’s work’ in the home are part of thewider cultural injustices that pervade paid work more generally.

Domestic Cleaning: Work or Labour

This chapter introduces the central argument of the book through a discussion of how the research respondents conceptualised paid-for domestic cleaning in terms of the structure of cleaning work and whether anyone can do cleaning for a living. The chapter proposes that depending on the conditions of work, cleaning can be done as work, that is, using mental and manual skills and effort and performed under decent, democratic work conditions, or as labour, that is, requiring mainly manual labour, accompanied by exertion of ‘natural’ emotional/affective labour and performed in undemocratic conditions. Good paid-for cleaning work is also not simply a replacement of unpaid housework that can be done by anyone; it entails much learning and continued commitment anddoes not come ‘naturally’ to women.

The Imperfect Contours of Outsourced Domestic Cleaning as Dirty Work

This chapter considers the symbolic construction of domestic cleaning as dirty work and the real, physical work of dealing with dirt. Through the lens of outsourced domestic cleaning – how much cleaning is necessary and what can be outsourced – the chapter shows that an ‘objective’ analysis of human experiences of dealing with real physical dirt is not possible without reference to dirt’s moral meanings for the researched as well as the researcher. The chapter concludes that the dirty work approach offers an incomplete understanding of paid domestic work and that an alternative paradigm is required.

Behind the Words: Introducing the Research Project and Respondents

This chapter first elaborates on the research project informing this book. Next, based on descriptive analyses, the chapter situates the research samples in the broader social worlds from which they were drawn. The analyses provide early evidence in this book for the mediating effect of socioeconomic class on role of other axes of inequality in paid domestic work.

Meanings of Domestic Cleaning as Work and Labour

This chapter locatespaid-for housecleaning within the wider world of paid and unpaid work.With regard to the UK, this draws on the previous work experiencesof the research respondents, and their reasons for preferring self-employmentor undeclared work and selectively using established goodbusiness practices. In India, there was a lack of work experience inother industries, and the accounts highlight the intersectional impactsof ‘men’s work’, patriarchy and desire for education on the investmentby the respondents in their work and its meanings for them. Together,these analyses show that domestic work is not inherently ‘dead-end’ – theworking conditions make a significant difference to how work is perceivedand experienced. Finally, the respondents’ classed (and casteised) understandings of thework in two cultures indicate that the problem with paid domestic labouris not commodification per se, but the way the work itself – and workmore generally – has been commodified.

Nuances in the Politics of Demand for Outsourced Housecleaning

This chapter interrogates the ‘need’ to outsource domestic cleaning, alongside implications for gender equality and relationship quality in the outsourcing household. It argues that ‘need’ is not directly related to affluence or status enhancement. The analysis of division of household labour when cleaning is outsourced shows that there is still plenty of housework for service-users to do themselves, particularly tidying up or ‘picking up’ after others. Sharing of this task could aid in progressing gender equality despite the outsourcing of cleaning. In this, if (middle-class) women do not see cleaning as their work, they will not expect (middle-class) men to undertake it either. The chapter concludes that claims of outsourced cleaning pitting the liberation of one class/race of women against that of another risk reducing women’s emancipation to freedom from housework and naturalising housework as women’s work.