Cleaning the ‘People's Home’: The Politics of the Domestic Service Market in Sweden

Abstract

While there is a substantial scholarly literature depicting the abuses and exploitation of domestic workers in the informal cleaning sector, there is virtually no work that examines conditions in the formal market. This is not an oversight. For many, commodifying domestic labour entrenches gender and economic inequalities; we all should simply clean up after ourselves. We seek to offer a fresh approach: the vital question for those concerned with the women performing this work for pay is not whether to commodify reproductive labour, but rather what form the market will take and what conditions might render it a decent job. In order to make such an assessment, we need to look beyond worst‐case scenarios in the informal sector, and study instead the evolution of the formal market. Only by also examining the content and terms of the work can we address how not to perpetuate inequalities such as the gendered division of labour and its intersection with nationality, race and class. In this article, we analyse the market for household services in Sweden's gender egalitarian social democracy, where a recent tax policy fostered the rapid expansion of a formal market for domestic cleaning. We conclude that domestic cleaning can be a decent job and that there is no inherent contradiction between a market for household services and a social democratic political economy.

Value of Formalization for Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Contexts: A Review and Research Agenda

“…Other studies find that women enact gender roles by hiding or devaluing their own economic activities, as a way of maintaining their traditional social positions as mothers and carers rather than successful business women (Bowman and Cole ). Franck and Olsson () observe that women strategically label their activities as housework in order to gain access to work, but still comply with different social norms so as to avoid destabilizing the household.…”

Vulnerability and deviance: individual reasoning about the proposal to ban begging in Sweden

“…The norm of support for equality is manifested as high support for the welfare state (Svallfors 2011) as well as in policy decisions. As an example, a proposal to tax relieve the purchase of household services was actively opposed with the argument that it would fundamentally damage Sweden's egalitarian society (Bowman and Cole 2014). In a similar way, studies indicate that institutionally conditioned norms influence governance and attitudes to social marginalisation.…”

The Role of Domestic Employment Policies in Shaping Precarious Work

“…). Previous studies show that in case of workplace violations, direct employees are dissuaded from complaining out of fear of losing their job, while in the case of agency employees, they can more easily turn to their employer for help (Bowman and Cole ). Bowman and Cole also found that in bigger companies especially, collective bargaining was better organized and wages of company employees were higher than those of self‐employed workers.…”

“…The heterogeneity of the sector puts workers in very different positions in terms of precariousness. Generally, part‐time work and short‐term contracts are common in the domestic work sector, which usually makes it difficult to develop stable jobs and decent work opportunities (Tomei ; Bowman and Cole ; Shire ).…”