ABSTRACT
This chapter presents paid domestic work as a realm of interactions through which class boundaries are drawn and class identity is formed. It discusses how middle class representatives seek out their new class identity through their standards, strategies of domestic management, and the views of the domestic workers. The chapter then outlines the theoretical framework related to the dialectics of control in care work, followed by a brief historical overview of commercialised homecare services in the Soviet Union and Russia. Based on the research interviews, the chapter analyses the two main types namely: the nanny model and the professional model, of employer-employee interactions in relation to the dialectics of control in care work. Social class is a relational concept, and classes are produced through economic, social and symbolic exchange and acted out in the market and work interactions as well as in personal consumption and lifestyle. The relations between employers and employees constitute one key dimension of social class.
