Care and Domestic Work

Abstract

The transnational migration of women (and some men) as domestic and care workers is based on the increasing expansion of a private market which is recruiting workers, mainly in the Global South, to perform tasks relating to reproductive labour in wealthier countries. To understand the experience of these workers, it is important to consider how this labour market differs from others. It cannot be reduced to payment for the performance of tasks. It is also undoubtedly affected by the private realm in which it takes place. Some scholars have argued that the uniqueness of this labour market lies in the intimacy that it is charged with, as a consequence of the physicality of care work, the privacy of the domestic setting in which it takes place, and the relevance of the interpersonal dimension it entails (Parreñas & Boris, 2010). Let us look more closely at these different elements.