ABSTRACT
Domestic work encompasses a series of household and child-care tasks. It is typically characterized by relatively low pay, hard physical labor, the absence of opportunities for advancement or promotion, low status and prestige, and the lack of guaranteed benefits such as paid vacation, sick leave, Social Security, and dental or medical insurance plans. Traditionally, a defining feature of the job has been the psychological exploitation that occurs in the close relationship established between employer and employee, both of whom are usually women. While both employer and employee share subordinate gender status in the United States, they are frequently differentiated by class, race, and legal status. Women of color and immigrant women have traditionally predominated in domestic work and they continue to do so today. Occupational arrangements, however, have undergone important historical shifts. By the 1920s in the United States, live-out domestic work arrangements became more prevalent than live-in work. Live-in arrangements, however, did not disappear, and today these jobs are filled by new immigrant women, many of whom lack legal status. Unlike the nineteenth century or the early twentieth century, when upper- and middle-class households employed multiple servants, today many employers can afford only one employee, so domestic work often occurs in an isolated and privatized environment. Remuneration varies widely by employer and by region of the country. Live-in domestics generally receive part of their salary in kind, in the form of room and board.
