Domestic Distinctions: Constructing difference among paid domestic workers in Toronto

Abstract

ABSTRACT Live-in paid domestic work represents a peculiar form of paid employment and employer-employee relations. Contradictions and ambiguities arise from the domestic worker's 'workplace' being her employer's 'home'; while intimacy, affective labour and a high degree of personalism veil the asymmetrical class relation between employer and employee. In Toronto, employers are often white women, while domestic workers are often (im)migrant women, especially 'third world' women of colour. Given this, we draw on in-depth interviews with paid domestic workers working in Toronto to examine ways in which the employer-employee relations are constructed through interlocking, relational systems of difference, especially gender, 'race'/ethnicity, nationality, immigration/citizenship status and language. We focus on three major aspects of the employer-employee work relation from the viewpoint of the domestic workers-living-in, being 'like one of the family', and feelings of respect, dignity and self-worth. We find that many of the women shared a number of common concerns and experiences. However, the specific articulation of systems of difference led to a range of experiences of the extent of asymmetry in employer-employee power relations.