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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
Nagaraj Badiger
Research Scholar Dept. of Sociology, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga
Karnataka .
Short Profile
Nagaraj Badiger is Research Scholar at Department of Sociology Gulbarga
University Gulbarga, Karnataka .
Co-Author Details :
Raghavendra Gudagunti
Associate Professor Govt.F.G.College, Shorapure Dist: Yadgir . Dept. of Sociology Gulbarga
University, Gulbarga Karnataka .
ABSTRACT:
A domestic worker is a person who
works within the employer's
household. Domestic workers
perform a variety of household
services for an individual or a family,
from providing care for children and
elderly dependents to cleaning and
household maintenance, known as
housekeeping. Responsibilities may
also include cooking, doing laundry
and ironing, food shopping and
other household errands. Some
domestic workers live within the
household where they work. In the
course of twentieth-century movements for labour rights, women's rights and immigrant rights, the
conditions faced by domestic workers and the problems specific to their class of employment have
come to the fore. In 2011, the International Labour Organization adopted the Convention Concerning
Decent Work for Domestic Workers which covers decent work conditions for domestic workers.
KEYWORDS
Domestic Workers , Socialogical Inquiry , International Labour Organization .
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
INTRODUCTION:
Domestic work has a long history of Gulbarga city with both men and women working in others’
homes as ‘servants’. The affluent had servants, mostly men, with loyalty, obligation and patronage
being the salient aspects of this relationship.. Though domestic work is not a new phenomenon in India,
it cannot simply be viewed as an extension of historical feudal culture where the affluent employed
‘servants’. The sector now primarily comprises women domestic workers who are not recognized as
‘workers’ while their work is ‘undervalued’. This is primarily due to the gendered notion of housework-value is not ascribed to women’s work in their homes, and by extension, even paid work in others’
homes is not given any value or regarded as work. It is also undervalued because, it is often performed
by poor, women from lower castes. All these contribute to the inferior status of their work, both in their
own minds and in society. Domestic work has to be placed in the larger context of patriarchy and
subjugation of women.
Patriarchy hands over controls of women’s mobility, economic resources, productive and
reproductive power to men. Both biological and social reproduction is carried out by women in most
societies. Social reproduction refers to all the caring and nurturing activities necessary to ensure
human survival and maintenance such as cooking, feeding, washing, cleaning, nursing and other
household activities. Although these are necessary for human survival, they are neither considered
work nor economic in nature and hence are invisible, unrecognized and unpaid. Usually it is women
and girls who perform socially reproductive work all across the world. The endless and repetitive labour
provided by them is not acknowledged as valuable work. Domestic work includes mental, manual and
emotional aspects, including care work that is necessary to maintain people and communities.
Domestic work is thus viewed as reproductive work that, creates not only labour units but also
people and social relations. Anderson further draws attention to domestic work being rooted in the
community: by ‘the doing of domestic work we literally reproduce our communities and our place
within them”. In this context, it is important to note who does the domestic work as this reflects the
relation between genders, race and class. Apart from the ‘wife’ or the ‘mother’, it is often paid domestic
workers who reproduce social relationships and social beings. Yet, the status of the domestic worker is
lower than the woman employer who can be considered as her manager. The worker is a labourer or
‘the hands’. Since social reproduction is not recognised as work, domestic workers too receive no
recognition as workers and are hence paid low wages. The employer-employee relationship is a
complex one and is viewed as one of domination, dependency and inequality. Also, this is an area of
work where the employer and the employee are mostly females. As a home is the site of work, relations
between employer and employee are often not limited to work but spill over as larger support systems.
This “confuses and complicates the conceptual clarity between family and work, custom and contract,
affection and duty because the hierarchical arrangements and emotional registers of home must
coexist with those of workplace.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER
1.To study the socio-economic conditions of domestic workers in Gulbarga city.
2.To know the educational background of domestic workers.
3.To analyze their religion.
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
4.To know the different categories of domestic workers
5.To study the issues of social security and welfare to domestic workers
NEED FOR THE PAPER
As men and women currently dominate the domestic labor market throughout the world, they
have learned to navigate the system of domestic work both in their own countries and abroad in order
to maximize the benefits entering the domestic labor market can bring them. Men and Women’s ability
to find a place in the workforce through their roles as domestic workers has proven to have both its
advantages and its limitations. Among the disadvantages of working as a domestic worker is the fact
that, women working in this sector are working in an area often regarded as a. Working in this private
sphere can prove to be divisive for women as the type of work may not allow them to develop unity
among other women workers. Feminist critics of women working in the domestic sphere argue that
this woman dominated market is reinforcing gender inequalities by potentially creating mistressservant relationships between domestic workers and their employers and continuing to put women
in a position of lesser power. More criticism points out that working in a privatized sphere robs
domestic workers of the enjoyment of the advantages brought by socialized work and working in the
public sphere.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This paper, exploring primary data collected from women domestic workers in Gulbarga city,
evidently brings out that domestic work as a feminine occupation in city like Gulbarga is a epitome of
critical deficits in human development, a vicioussituation of lack of core entitlements which are
required to enjoy freedom guaranteed by the democratic society and the necessity of appropriate
alternatives to bring a positive social change, impacting lives of hapless domestic workers and their
families.
METHODOLOGY:
The methodology in Social science research comprises selection of study areas, selection of 100
samples and collected both primary and secondary data for the present study the sample is
restricted to the Gulbarga city.
DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF DOMESTIC WORK
In the Indian context, domestic work is generally defined in terms of types of work performed
and the time spent at work, i.e., in the employer’s home. Liveout and live-in are two distinct categories
of domestic work. Live-out work is primarily of two types: first, those who work in one house for the
whole day and go back to their homes in the evening and; secondly, those who work in different houses,
moving from one to the other, performing one or more tasks in each household. They may clean in one
house, chop vegetables in another and wash clothes in the third, while some others may only perform a
task, such as cooking. They often visit these households twice a day though the requirements in some
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
families may be limited to only once a day. Another form of part-time live-out work is in terms of piecerate. It is often applied to washing clothes and wages are calculated on the basis of buckets of clothes.
Women who work as live-out part-timers are primarily migrants who move to the city with their
families or are female construction workers who enter domestic labour when no construction work is
available. Some of them are also landless labourers who are displaced when rural areas are absorbed
by cities. On moving to the city, they mainly reside in the difficult conditions of slum clusters. They begin
work at one or two houses and gradually take up more, depending on their individual capacities, the
money needed and their specific stage of life cycle.
WORKING CONDITIONS
The tasks performed by either category of domestic workers may include cleaning (sweeping,
swabbing and dusting), washing (clothes and dishes), or even putting machine-washed clothes on the
clothesline or/and folding them, cooking, or preparation for cooking such as chopping vegetables and
making dough, or cooking a part of meal, ironing, housekeeping and extensions ofthese outside the
home such as shopping. Domestic work may also include childcare or care of the aged. There are no
standard norms that decide working conditions. By and large, employers decide wages though this is
often the ‘rate’ of the area they live in. Wages also depend on the bargaining power of the domestic
worker and workers’ desperation for work. Experienced workers may be able to bargain for more while
those desperate for work may be willing to work at lower rates. Other factors, that influence decisions
about wages include the type of tasks performed and the neighbor hood. Rates vary according to the
task (for example, cooking attracts more wages than cleaning) and the socio-economic profile of
employers. These factors are not cast-in-stone as workers are made to perform extra work with no
additional compensation, especially during festivals or when employers have guests. There is no
guarantee of employment as employers can ask workers to leave with no prior notice or financial
compensation. These studies also note that only a few workers get a weekly off; paid leave is often the
result of difficult negotiations with the employers. Getting sick leave also depends on the good will of
the employer. Instances of workers losing their jobs due to long leave taken at time of childbirth or ill
health are often reported. Some also lose their jobs when they visit their villages. Deduction in wages
for extra leave is a common practise among employers. Part-time workers are not allowed access to a
toilet in the employers’ homes. Many commute long distances and thus have no time to cook and carry
food with them. They are often not provided with any tea or snacks and stay hungry till they get back
home where they have to cope with difficult living conditions in urban slums.
ISSUES OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND WELFARE
Some of these men and women works as domestic workers over long time periods but have
little or no savings for their old age. They are not entitled to any old-age pensions, gratuity or bonus.
They have no medical insurance and all expenses of illness, hospitalisation of self and family are borne
by the worker. Neither do they have any coverage for childbirth, injury at work place or loans to build
houses or other social responsibilities. Such loans or grants, as all other benefits, depend on their
relation with the employer and the employer’s goodwill. No data is available on older domestic
workers. Though domestic workers have been included in the unorganised Workers' Social Security Act,
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
2008 (Act 33 of 2008), they have not yet got any benefits. Even in Gulbarga city ,the Domestic Workers
Welfare Board Act 2008 has not been implemented.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Age Structure of Respondents
The personnel of all ages from 18-49 and above years were engaged of domestic workers in
Gulbarga city. The distribution of respondents according to age structure chosen for the present study
is presented in the table-1
Table-1
Age Structure of Respondents
Sl.No.
Particulars
No. of Respondents
Percentage
a)
18 to 28 years
27
27
b)
29 to 38 Years
30
30
c)
39 t0 48 Years
19
19
d)
49 and above Years
24
24
Total
100
100
Source: Field Survey
The Table 1 highlights age wise distribution of respondents in all the selected domestic workers
in Gulbarga district of the present study area. Respondents are belonging to age category of 18-28 years
and above constituting 27% of total respondents. It is clear from the above table that lowest No of
respondents 30.% were following the age category of 29-38 years. It is followed by respondents age
category of more that 39-48 years 19%. It is astonishing to note that major position of the respondents
fall in the adult category this may possible due to social service usually found among young generation.
Religion wise respondents:
The religious system area universal belief in Supreme Being worship of a number of smaller gods
and deities, and rituals for their propitiation, the priesthood and procedure for curing the sick, magical
beliefs and family belief in the soul and life after death. In the Gulbarga district, the main feature of the
religious system is the universal belief in the god head. It may be mentioned at outset, that Hindu,
Muslim, Christian and Boudhist other religious beliefs and practices have also made considerable
impact of people and as to the Nature of religious the Domestic workers give details opinions in and the
same were presented in the table 2.
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
Table-2
Religion wise respondents
Sl. No.
Particulars
No. of Respondents
Percentage
a
Hindu
67
67
b
Muslim
18
18
c
Christian
05
05
d
Boudhist
10
10
Total
100
100
Source: Field Survey
The above table reveals that, religion wise distributions of respondents in selected domestic
workers, belongs to Hindu consisting of 67%, and lowest number respondents belong to other
religions accounting for 33% only.
EDUCATION WISE RESPONDENTS
Education is an important input for any type of job. However, no rigid pre-requisites regarding
education qualification for personnel working in it. Hence, the range of educational qualifications of
the personnel was indeed very wide from the barely literates to the doctorates, from disciplines like
Sociology, Economics, Political-Science, all were represented in the sample. The respondents are
classified on the basis of their educational background is presented in the following table 3
Table-3
Education wise Respondents
Sl.No.
Particulars
No. of Respondents
Percentage
a
Primary
60
60
b
High School
11
11
c
P.U.C.
4
4
d
Degree
3
3
e
Degree and above
1
1
f
Illiterate
21
21
100
100
Total
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
Source: Field Survey
From the above table 60% of the respondents are educated up to a level of primary, where as
P.U.C. constitute nearly 4%, post graduate account for only 1% and SSLC providing education to only
11%.This distribution conforms to the general trend in society. Where have a best educational status. As
regards an almost most percentage in the category of Degree. It could be due to the fact that, educated
women felt concerned about their duty towards fellow domestic workers and wanted to put their
education to the use of society.
Marital Status of the Respondents
The distribution of respondents according to Marital Status is shown in the table.4
Sl.No.
Table-4
Marital Status of the Respondents
No. of Respondents
Particulars
Percentage
a)
Married
91
91
b)
Separated
4
4
c)
Widow
5
5
100
100
Total
Source: Field Surveys
The above table shows that out of 100 respondents 91% are married and 5 % are widows and no
one women is separated. This indicates that marriage is almost universal in all age groups. Majority of
separated women’s were 4 % in the present study.
Nature of the family of Respondents:
The distribution of respondents according to size of family to know from domestic workers is
detailed presented in the following table 5.
Table-5
Nature of the family of Respondents:
Sl.No.
Particulars
No. of Respondents
Percentage
a)
Joint
8
8
b)
Nuclear
92
92
Total
100
100
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
Source: Field Survey
The above table reveals that, out of 100 respondents only 8% of the respondents are staying in
joint family and remaining 92 % of the respondents are staying Nuclear family.
Own House of the Respondents
In the present study, a purposeful enquiry has been made to determine adequacy of
inadequacy of own house facilities extended to the respondents. Views of respondents presented in
the below Table-6.
Table-6
Own House of the Respondents
Sl.No.
Particulars
No. of Respondents
Percentage
a)
Yes
67
67
b)
No
33
33
Total
100
100
Source: Field Survey
The above Table shows that, clearly differing viewpoints about furniture extended to
respondents Survey of the investigation revealed that 100 respondents 67% have expressed that their
own house facilities and 33% expressed did not have own house.
Occupations of the Respondents.
Domestic workers form almost half of the total workforce, it is now being realized that, workers
are important participants in the development process. With the development of society and economy
have developed their confidence to appraise their positions in every activity of the society.
Table-7
Occupations of the Respondents
Sl. No.
Particulars
No. of Respondents
Percentage
a
Children care
18
18
b
Home cleaning
71
71
c
Cooking
8
8
d
Driving
3
3
100
100
Total
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Source: Field Survey
Occupational classification and show that, majority of them are children care 18 percent, 71
percent of the respondents come from Home cleaning, cooking 8 percent and 3 percent of driving only.
FINDINGS OF THE PAPER:
1.It is found that, age category of 18-28 years and above constituting 27% of total respondents. It is
clear from the above table that, lowest No of respondents 30.% were following the age category of 2938 years. It is followed by respondents age category of more that 39-48 years 19%.
2.Whereas distributions of respondents in selected domestic workers, belongs to Hindu consisting of
67%, and lowest number respondents belong to other religions accounting for 33% only.
3.In the study 60% of the respondents are educated up to a level of primary, where as P.U.C. constitute
nearly 4%, post graduate account for only 1% and SSLC providing education to only 11%.This
distribution conforms to the general trend in society. Where have a best educational status.
4.It is found that, out of 100 respondents only 8% of the respondents are staying in joint family and
remaining 92 % of the respondents are staying Nuclear family.
5.Whereas children care 18 percent, 71 percent of the respondents come from Home cleaning,
cooking 8 percent and 3 percent of driving only.
SUGGESTIONS:
1.The present allocation is too meager and as a result the resources are thinly spread over a number of
schemes producing no tangible result. Therefore, it is necessary to double the budget allocation for the
welfare of the domestic work including the allocation for Special Component Plan.
2.It is suggested that, In order to empower Domestic workers, we need not only to give them more
economic power but also bring changes in the entire, social, political and legal systems and policies of
the country because these are responsible for lower states in society and the main hindrances in their
progress.
3. suggested that, In order to make economically self reliant domestic workers should be encouraged
to engage themselves in home based economic activities.
4.Respondents want The Minimum Wages Act 1948 for domestic workers must be stringently
implemented throughout the country.
5.Creating awareness, participation and organizing active community groups Training of peripheral
social workers. Providing outreach services facilities.
6.They suggested that, the govt. should establish more schemes to self employment for domestic
workers, because of we may be popularized to generate and increase our family income.
CONCLUSION
Due to a lack of economic opportunity in the, many workers with families leave their countries
of origin and their own families to pursue work in the Gullbarga city. When they arrive in their country of
destination, their work often entails caring for another family (including children and the elderly).
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DOMESTIC WORKERS: A SOCIALOGICAL INQUIRY
Domestic workers often migrate to financially support their immediate family, extended family, and
even other members of their community. While enduring dangerous and demeaning working and living
conditions in Gulbarga, the majority of their wages are remitted to their countries of origin. An
additional argument has been made that, because their work takes place within the private sphere,
they are often rendered invisible and employers are able to withhold their travel documents, confining
them to their employers’ home and inhibiting their access to legal redress. Those making this argument
assert that, the result of what they refer to as a power dynamic and an asserted lack of labour rights, is
that domestic workers are often forbidden to contact their families and often go months, years, and
even decades without seeing their families, whose lives their remittances are supporting.
REFERENCES
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York: Zed Books.
3.Banerjee, N. 1982. Unorganised Women Workers: The Calcutta Experience.Calcutta: Centre for
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5.Bhattacharya, Shrayana. 2010. ‘Need for Domestic Workers in Households in the Current Economic
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7.DWRC 2010.Domestic Workers Legislation: A Way Forward. Ahmedabad:
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