The Movement of Household Workers in Evo Morales’ Bolivia: Demands and Policies (2006-2016)

Abstract

Household workers occupy the lowest position in Bolivian gender, ethnic and class hierarchies: the great majority of them are rural, indigenous and working-class women. In 1993, they created the National Federation of Bolivian Household Workers (Fenatrahob) and they began their struggle for the protection of household workers’ rights. The major result of this campaign was the creation 2450/2003 Law that Regulates Paid Household Work, which gave household workers almost equivalent legal rights to the rest of the Bolivian workforce. In 2006, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS, in Spanish) left-indigenist party, with Evo Morales as president, won state power, pledging to improve the situation of household workers across Bolivia. In this MPhil thesis, I analyse the main demands of the social movement of household workers during the first ten years of Evo Morales in government (2006-2016) and the policies that the government implemented to fulfil the demands of the movement. I explain the partial satisfaction of the demands of the movement through the analysis of the relations between the movement and the government (institutionalization, as it is denominated by social movement scholars). The research contributes to the literature on household workers’ mobilisations, social movements outcomes and social movement institutionalization. The research is based on thematic content analysis of documents produced by Fenatrahob and the Bolivian government, semi-structured interviews with Bolivian officials and activists, and secondary sources.