Domestic Work

Amanda Moras

Paid domestic work encompasses a wide array of labor types usually referred to as care work or reproductive labor. Most paid domestic work positions involve housecleaning or child care, possibly cooking, or some combination of the three. Over time, minority women—first African Americans and later Latinas—came to be represented disproportionately in these jobs. This entry provides a brief history of domestic work and its relationship to race and ethnicity in U.S. society. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo identifies three common types of domestic work positions in her study Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. She includes (1) the live-in nanny/housekeeper, an employee who works for and lives with one family and is generally responsible for child care and caring for the household, (2) the live-out nanny/housekeeper, who works for one family full time but returns to own home at the end of the day and (3) the Only ...

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