What is paid domestic work?

Domestic work is essential for supporting our economy and lives. It includes a large number of activities like caring, preparing meals, cleaning, doing laundry in other words, activities necessary for social reproduction, and it can be paid or unpaid.

The Covid-19 pandemic has only highlighted the importance of this area of social activity. From middle class families who were suddenly unable to access paid domestic workers just as nearly all activity became restricted to the home, to domestic workers who saw their income sources dry up from one day to the next, there are many witnesses to the increasingly urgent question of how we, as a society, meet our domestic labor needs.

It is calculated that between 11 and 18 million people are paid domestic workers in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 93% are women. Paraguay is one of three countries with the largest proportion of women in domestic service, meaning that paid domestic work is one of the most common points of entry into the labor market for women in this country (CEPAL, UN Women, 2020).

In our country, 94% of domestic workers are women and over 90% work informally**. The sector had the highest rate of informality of all occupational categories through 2020. Compliance with labor rights in the sector is low: 90% of female workers did not have access to paid annual vacation and were hired through verbal contracts. Added to this, many workers face conditions of poverty, rural-urban migration, and entry into the labor market at a very young age. 

During recent years, however, there have been important advances in rights regarding the minimum wage and decent work conditions. While important, legislative progress does not directly translate into better working conditions. Barriers to decent work persist. These barriers must be studied in depth in order to identify effective actions for strengthening workers’ labor rights.

What do we do as a lab?

Considering the sector’s importance and high levels of informality, the Participatory Laboratory for Employment Formalization in Paraguay (LabMTESS) has selected this sector for the development of a second learning loop.

To this end, an initial diagnostic report will be developed based on exploratory interviews, a bibliographical review, and a gender- and rights-informed analysis of quantitative data. This document will outline research questions for the next phase: exploration.

In the exploration phase, we will perform a survey of domestic worker employers, workshops with unionized and non-unionized workers, a cultural probe with the aforementioned workers and interviews with analysts and activists in the domestic work sphere. This exploratory phase will identify key barriers to labor formalization in the sector, and will establish a causal and experimental hypothesis regarding the problem to be tested in the experiment phase.

The entire process is guided by a multidisciplinary, people-centered perspective that aims to build scientific evidence for the development of public policy that strengthens progress towards decent work in the sector. 

* Authors:

Gustavo Setrini, Head of Solutions Mapping, AccLabPy.

Tannya Mongelos, Gender Specialist, LabMTESS.

Georgina Hernandez, Social Investigator, LabMTESS.

Claudia Montanía, Analista de Datos, AccLabPY.

Fernando Ovando, Public Policy Specialist, LabMTESS.

Cristhian Parra, Head of Experimentation, AccLabPy.

Mónica Ríos, Head Exploration, AccLabPy.

** Calculations authored by LabMTESS according INE 2020 data, universe: people who dedicate 16 hours or more a week to domestic work.  

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