What about the numbers? A quantitative contribution to the study of domestic services in Europe

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2014.00202.x
• Author: Manuel ABRANTES
• Date: 01 June 2014
• Published date: 01 June 2014

International Labour Review, Vol. 153 (2014), No. 2

Copyright © The author 2014

Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2014

What about the numbers?

A quantitative contribution to the study

of domestic services in Europe

Manuel ABRANTES*

Abstract. How many domestic workers are there in Europe? How have their

numbers evolved? Do the patterns differ across countries? Examining European

Union Labour Force Survey data for the EU15 over the period 2000 –10, the au-

thor nds that the numbers of domestic workers grew in this period, particularly

those caring for children and frail adults. His analysis conrms the coexistence of

two contrasting models that broadly divide Europe between northern countries re-

lying mainly on public services and southern countries relying on private solutions.

Considering the explanatory capacity of public policy, labour market dynamics

and gender relations, however, he argues for a more nuanced approach to under-

standing cross-country patterns.

Over the past decade, a number of social scientists have studied the

organization of domestic work in contemporary Western societies (An-

derson, 2000; Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2002; Lutz, 2008; Isaksen, 2010;

Dahl, Keränen and Kovalainen, 2011). Their studies highlight the experience

of domestic workers, many of whom are migrant women, and present both

concurring and contrasting ndings on paid in-house labour and gender, class,

globalization and the dynamics of the new service economy. The ILO Domes-

tic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), has made a substantial contribution

to the visibility of this subject in public debate.

* SOCIUS – Research Centre in Economic and Organizational Sociology, School of

Business and Management, University of Lisbon, email: mabrantes@socius.iseg.utl.pt. This work

is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Visitors’

Research Programme of the Migration and Diversity Centre, VU University, Amsterdam. A draft

version of the article was presented at the 7th Interim Meeting of the European Sociological

Association (ESA) Research Network 19 “Sociology of Professions”, at the University of Helsinki,

24–26 May 2 012. The author wishes to thank Sara Falcão Casaca, Sarah van Walsum, Rebeca Pabon,

João Peixoto, Lena Näre and the anonymous referees for their valuable comments, and Eurostat

staff for their kindness and technical support.

Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and

publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

International Labour Review224

However, an intriguing lack of quantitative data seems to persist in this

area, which has been identied as a distinctive feature of gender studies (Oakley,

2000). To be sure, large-scale employment data sets have particular limitations

when it comes to domestic work. It is difcult for standardized concepts or cat-

egories to remain meaningful when analysis covers many countries over a long

time period. Perhaps more importantly, ofcial gures are likely to exclude a sub-

stantial number of situations in which domestic work is performed in an informal

or precarious context, especially in countries with a large volume of undeclared

labour (Schneider and Klinglmair, 2004); this is a well-known challenge for so-

cial scientists working on employment and migration issues (Williams, 2010a).

Similar difculties apply to qualitative research. Denitions of “work”,

“domestic” and “care”, to mention just the main terms, often vary according to

empirical context and personal perception. As Bridget Anderson (200 0, p. 21)

writes: “domestic work is not denable in terms of tasks but in terms of a role

which constructs and situates the worker within a certain set of social relation-

ships”. The propensity of quantitative analysis to underestimate informal work

relations does not reduce its capacity to describe formal work relations, as long

as a clear record of methodological possibilities and limitations is kept. Quan-

titative research may tie in with qualitative research, including on undeclared

work or migration. In this sense, statistical data should not be perceived as the

antithesis of “narrative”, a concept that is often limited to qualitative research.

In fact, both “qualitative” and “quantitative” are relative rather than absolute

terms (Oakley, 200 0). Statistics are narratives in their own right; they are im-

portant in terms of both what they show and what they do not show, much in

the same way that ethnography can document what is said and left unsaid in

empirical contexts (Gunewardena and Kingsolver, 2007).

Another specic characteristic of studies on domestic work is that the

relevant data are collected mainly within large urban settings, even when re-

search is expected to generate conclusions relating to a particular country or

region. Shared cultural values and national legal standards certainly play a role,

but it has also been noted that locations hold their own dynamics and struc-

tural specicities (Sassen, 1991). While comparative analysis of domestic work

in different cities has been carried out (e.g. Anderson, 2000; Catarino and Oso,

2000; Parreñas, 2001; and Marchetti, 2010), little analysis has been carried out

at national or cross-national level.

How many people are actually employed in domestic work? How have

their numbers evolved in recent years? What cross-national differences are

there? These questions will be answered by examining, for the period 2000 –10,

European Union Labour Force Survey (EU LFS) data for the EU15 countries:

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Brief accounts of existing research and methodology will be provided before

presenting the results.

For analytical purposes, some authors make a distinction between typ-

ical housework (e.g. cooking and cleaning) and caring for children and frail