Employer practices and perceptions on paid domestic work : recruitment, employment relationships, and social protection

Abstract

This study report is an important contribution towards understanding employers’ perceptions, rationale and bases that underlie how employers in urban India engage, value, and perceive domestic work. To do so, it draws upon data from personal interviews with 403 households in two large metropolitan Indian cities– Bengaluru and Chennai – with variations across socio-economic status, caste, neighborhood type and across households with and without women working for wages. This report is the third of a three-part series, with the first report looking at paid and unpaid hours taken to reproduce a household in urban India, and the second report looking at the quality of employment for paid domestic workers.