The Role of Maternalism in Contemporary Paid Domestic Work

Amanda Moras

doi:10.4236/sm.2013.33033

Abstract

Various studies of domestic work have identified close personal relationships between domestic workers and employers as a key instrument in the exploitation of domestic workers, allowing employers to solicit unpaid services as well as a sense of superiority (Rollins, 1985; Romero, 2002; Glenn, 1992; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001). Likewise, other scholars have pointed out that close employee-employer relationships may actually empower domestic workers, increasing job leverage (Thorton-Dill, 1994). Ultimately, these lines are blurry and ever changing as employers continuously redefine employee expectations. Drawing from a larger study involving thirty interviews with white upper middle class women who currently employ domestic workers (mostly housecleaners) this paper explores employers’ interactions with domestic workers. Through these interviews this research elaborates on how employers and employees interact, how employers feel about these interactions, and explores to what extent these interactions are informed by the widely reported maternalistic tendencies of the past, while also considering the consequences of this.

Highlights

It is clear that domestic workers are disproportionately women of color (Duffy, 2007)
Maternalism is related to the historical tradition of paternalism in domestic service occupations, is distinct in the ways in which maternalism “is a concept related to women’s supportive intrafamilial roles of nuturing, loving, and attending to affective needs” (Rollins, 1985: p. 187)
Drawing from a larger study involving thirty interviews with white upper middle class women who currently employ domestic workers this paper explores employers’ interactions with domestic workers

Summary

Amanda Moras

Various studies of domestic work have identified close personal relationships between domestic workers and employers as a key instrument in the exploitation of domestic workers, allowing employers to solicit unpaid services as well as a sense of superiority (Rollins, 1985; Romero, 2002; Glenn, 1992; HondagneuSotelo, 2001). While it is clear that some women have long worked in wage labor (working class women, poor women, and women of color), recent decades have shown a large influx of class privileged women into white collar and professional sectors This movement of upper and middle class women into the workforce creates a demand for others to take on “caring labor” in the home (Hochschild, 2003; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001). Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many Black American and Mexican American women left domestic work for jobs in the public sector (HondagneuSotelo, 2001) Around this same time, the percentage of foreign-born Latinas working in domestic service jumped. Class privileged women in receiving countries purchase the labor of immigrant women, while migrant workers purchase the labor of even poorer women left behind in sending countries or depend on unpaid family care

Maternalism and Domestic Work

Data and Method

Not Maternalism But Still Unequal

Findings

Discussion