Suchergebnisse

The concept of work can be understood as a purposeful human activity, which is focused on the processing of natural goods, items and/or information by using tools to meet tangible and intangible needs. Work is the usage of instruments to support the existence of humankind and the social world. Domestic work refers to work of domestic help, which applies to employees, usually individuals who work and often live in the house of the employer. Emotional labor takes place in the public sphere as a social and economic exchange sold for wages during interactions with customers or coworkers. Emotional labor requires certain emotions to be displayed and expressed in line with organizational aims.

Statistical analysis of the labour market in South Africa shows that between 1994 and 2015, the growth rate of domestic worker employment was slow in comparison to the growth rate of high-income jobs. In Gauteng, the slow growth of domestic worker employment contributed to the overall slow growth of all unskilled jobs. This is because domestic workers consist of around half of all unskilled jobs. The growth of these elementary jobs was therefore much slower compared to high-income middle-class jobs (Crankshaw, forthcoming). Therefore, Gauteng experienced professionalisation rather than social polarisation. Like Gauteng, Cape Town has also experienced professionalisation, due in part to the slow growth of domestic worker employment. The slow growth of domestic worker employment can be partly attributed to the growth of part-time domestic worker employment. This is because households employing part-time domestic workers tend to share domestic workers, which leads to fewer domestic workers being employed per household (Crankshaw, forthcoming). This thesis explores some of the reasons behind the growth of part-time domestic work in Cape Town. Specifically, it uncovers and describes some of the reasons behind why middleclass households in Cape Town choose to employ part-time domestic workers. The thesis also explores how legislation has an impact on the wages, hours, and conditions of employment of domestic workers in middle-class households. The research conducted for this thesis uses both descriptive statistical methods and qualitative methods. The statistical research lays the foundation for the qualitative research by showing the slow growth rate of domestic employment in comparison to managerial, professional, and technical occupations. A critical realist approach is used to guide the qualitative research. A critical realist approach seeks to explain causality through understanding the qualitative properties which create, determine or generate relations and objects. Therefore, the qualitative research uncovers and describes some of the causal mechanisms behind the growth of part-time domestic work in Cape Town with a specific focus on middle-class households. Reasons behind why middleclass households employ full-time domestic workers or no domestic workers at all, is explored as counterfactual evidence. The thesis finds that many middle-class households which hire domestic workers do not base their wages only on the minimum wage. Rather the wages these households set are influenced more by their personal values and/or personal finances. The households in this study which employed domestic workers did not generally adhere to government regulations such as having written contracts with their domestic workers or registering them for UIF. The causal mechanisms behind the decision to hire part-time, full-time or no domestic work is summarised in the table below. Shared causal mechanisms are highlighted.

A review essay on a book edited by Barbara Ehrenreich & Arlie Russell Hochschild, Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (New York: Holt, 2002). Adapted from the source document.

Domestic work has evolved and adapted in the global South in distinctive racialized and gendered forms as a result of neoliberal economic restructuring. With the case of Uganda, this article applies a transnational intersectionality framework to neoliberal economic restructuring to identify how domestic worker regimes are produced. A transnational intersectionality approach spotlights the translocation of diverse Ugandan domestic workers embedded within the structural forces of economic organization, reproductive labor, state policies, and geography. Drawing from extensive fieldwork from three regions of Uganda, the study's two main findings document: (1) the production of an intersectional racialized domestic worker regime as a consequence of the Ugandan aid state; and (2) the production of an intersectional gendered domestic worker regime supported by the weakening and underfunding of social development policies in the Ugandan national budget. These regimes show how race, gender, and regional demarcations of domestic work intersect in distinct forms connected to restructuring. A transnational intersectionality approach exposes the diversity of patterns in reproductive labor in Uganda.