Of Mops and Maids: Contradictions and Continuities in Bureaucratized Domestic Work

Mendez, Jennifer Bickham

doi:10.2307/3097146

Cited by 58 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Cleaners, by contrast, are far less likely to report these same satisfying relational aspects of work. Moreover, with the spread of large firms (such as Molly Maids) in the cleaning sector, many cleaners have experienced a significant erosion of their daily working conditions, including increased work intensification, physical health hazards and a lack of control over equipment, supplies and the pace of work (Aguiar, 2001;Aguiar and Herod, 2006;Ehrenreich, 2002;Mendez, 1998;Neal, 1994;Seifert and Messing, 2006).…”

Section: Direct Versus Indirect Carementioning

confidence: 99%

The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

Anderson

Hughes

2010

Gender Work & Organization

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Our goal in this article is to contribute to a differentiated analysis of paid caring work by considering whether and how women's experiences of such work is shaped by their employment status (for example, self-employed versus employee) and the nature of care provided (direct or indirect). Selfemployed care workers have not been widely studied compared with other types of care workers, such as employees providing domestic or childcare in private firms or private homes. Yet their experiences may be quite distinct. Existing research suggests that self-employed workers earn less than employees and are often excluded from employment protection. Nonetheless, they often report greater autonomy and job satisfaction in their day-to-day work. Understanding more about the experiences of selfemployed caregivers is thus important for enriching existing theory, research and policy on the marketization of care. Addressing this gap, our article explores the working conditions, pay and levels of satisfaction of care workers who are self-employed. We draw on interviews from a smallscale study of Canadian women engaged in providing direct care (for example, childcare) and indirect care (for example, cleaning).

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Section: Direct Versus Indirect Carementioning

confidence: 99%

The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

Anderson

Hughes

2010

Gender Work & Organization

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“…Specifically, I examine how labour recruiters, through their Web-based marketing strategies, "represent" Asian female foreign domestic workers. This paper is based on the presumption that the commercialisation of migration serves an important "socialising" process that contributes to the vulnerability and exploitation of female foreign domestic workers (Mendez, 1998). As Roxanne Ng (1986), Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (1997) and others maintain, employment agencies "prepare" and "educate" employers about their future employees.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Web‐based Recruitment of Female Foreign Domestic Workers in Asia

Tyner

1999

Singap J Trop Geogr

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In the last three decades, there has been an increased “feminisation” of international migration within the Asian region. In part, the increased mobility of women migrant workers within Asia has resulted from the increased bureaucratic regulation of labour migration. This commodification of the migratory process, however, has placed women in significantly more vulnerable positions vis‐´‐vis their male counterparts. Comparatively little research, however, has examined the critical role of private recruitment agencies, and especially the use of the Internet, within the migratory process. In this paper, I examine the Web‐based recruitment strategies of private recruitment agencies in Asia. Based on a qualitative analysis of 25 recruitment‐related Web sites, I suggest that the commercialisation of migration serves an important “socialisation” process that contributes to the vulnerability and exploitation of female foreign domestic workers.

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“…Previous studies have already challenged the assumption that personalisation necessarily disappears when employment relationships in paid domestic work are triangulated (Du Toit, 2013;Meagher, 1997;Mendez, 1998). As demonstrated in this article, the frequency and importance of personalisation in paid domestic work is not reduced through formal changes in employment conditions (guaranteeing workers' access to social protection) and employment relations (formalising and triangulating previously bilateral informal worker-employer relationships).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Following the logic of modernization, such triangulating formalisation is expected to result in the decrease of the frequency and importance of personalisation (Mendez, 1998, p. 117). Meagher (1997), Mendez (1998) and Du Toit (2013) have however convincingly demonstrated that formalisation does not necessarily eliminate personalisation processes. Their conclusions have been formulated in the context of market-driven formalisation, which makes Belgium an interesting case study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The more things change, the more they stay the same? The impact of formalising policies on personalisation in paid domestic work - the case of the service voucher in Belgium

Safuta

Camargo

2019

CMS

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Belgium had a long tradition of direct informal employment in paid domestic work, which has undergone formalisation through the introduction of the 'service voucher system'. This policy triangulates the employment relationship between workers and clients through introducing third-party employing agencies, and guarantees workers' access to labour and social security rights. Up until now, most international studies of paid domestic work have focused on direct and privatized worker-employer relationships (Anderson, Doing the dirty work?: The global politics of domestic labour, 2000); Hondagneu-Sotelo, Domestica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence, 2001); (Lutz, The New Maids: Transnational women and the care economy, 2011); Moras (Sociology Mind, 3(3), 248-256, 2013); (Romero, Maid in the U.S.A., 1992). This literature has shown that paid domestic work often features 'personalised' (emotionally-loaded) worker-employer relationships. The goal of this article is to analyse the impact of the introduction of the service voucher system on personalisation processes affecting paid domestic work in Belgium. Is personalisation bound to disappear with the sector's formalisation or is it intrinsic to paid domestic work? We show that personalisation is not threatened by formalisation policies which do not challenge the structural inequalities underpinning paid domestic work (and to which personalisation develops as a remedy). In the Belgian case, the service voucher policy did not challenge the crucial role of personalisation for finding and keeping jobs, as well as improving working conditions. The article shows that personalisation is an informal social protection strategy which developed in the exploitative conditions of informality, but is likely to survive formalising policies. Indeed, formalisation did not eliminate the need for personalisation, as it did not substantially improve working conditions in the sector, failed to recognise workers' qualifications and to challenge the gendered and migrantized character of domestic work employment.

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Of Mops and Maids: Contradictions and Continuities in Bureaucratized Domestic Work

Cited by 58 publications

References 16 publications

The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

The Web‐based Recruitment of Female Foreign Domestic Workers in Asia

The more things change, the more they stay the same? The impact of formalising policies on personalisation in paid domestic work - the case of the service voucher in Belgium

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