Essential yet excluded: COVID-19 and the decent work deficit among domestic workers in Brazil

Abstract

This article presents data from a survey conducted with the National Federation of Domestic Workers of Brazil on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic workers, also considering emergency policies and the Federation's main actions in the first year of the crisis. Focusing on employment and income, occupational health and safety, and violations of rights, it shows the extreme polarization between those who lost their livelihoods and those obliged to continue working at the expense of their health and basic human rights. Although the circumstances were exceptional, the authors argue that this situation was made possible by pre-existing conditions of legal exclusion and precarity.