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Domestic Services in a "Land of Equality": The Case of Sweden
Abstract
Pendant environ deux générations, le travail domestique rémunéré était très rare en Suède et la disparition du travail domestique des ménages privés était largement considérée comme importante du point de vue de l’égalité. Toutefois, pendant les deux dernières décennies, la demande de services ménagers a augmenté en raison du déclin des services sociaux et institutionnels et des écarts salariaux grandissants. Au même moment, la mondialisation, surtout l’élargissement de l'Union européenne, a ouvert l'accès à la main-d’œuvre de pays où les salaires sont considérablement plus bas qu'en Suède.
Le présent article décrit le contexte historique de la réglementation qu'on trouve aujourd'hui sur le travail domestique rémunéré en Suède. La gestion actuelle du travail domestique rémunéré y est ensuite analysée en tenant compte de la façon dont elle cause des inégalités et de la diversité par l'intermédiaire de la déréglementation, de l'individualisation et de la privatisation. De plus, la réglementation existant en Suède fait l'objet de discussion du point de vue des droits et de l'accès à la justice, à partir de certains éléments clés de la Convention proposée de l'Organisation internationale du travail.
La réglementation et la protection du travail domestique améliorent les conditions de travail à court terme, mais l'auteure croit que la façon d’éliminer à long terme les inégalités et la vulnérabilité doit reposer sur la collectivisation des tâches ménagères et aussi sur le partage égal de ces tâches entre hommes et femmes. Cependant, ces changements doivent comprendre des choix de société plus larges, y compris de généreuses ressources pour offrir de bonnes garderies publiques, des services sociaux et des soins de santé, des congés parentaux partagés entre hommes et femmes, ainsi que l’égalité entre les sexes en ce qui a trait à la rémunération et aux règlements de l'impôt sur le revenu. Enfin, chaque personne physiquement apte à faire du ménage devrait s'en occuper elle-même.
... It has gained this reputation because of the Swedish government's long commitment to enacting policies designed to further gender equality, by supporting Swedish families to combine family life and paid labour. Central to the Swedish quest for gender equality has been to, through policy means, encourage men and women to share responsibilities for both paid and unpaid work (Platzer, 2006;Calleman, 2011). Sweden's reputation as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world is mostly fair. ...
... Claims have also been made that the reform could create inequalities between women based on class and ethnicity, as the domestic service sector to a large degree employs working-class migrant women, while the buyers of RUT services typically are White, middle-or upper-middle-class families (Gavanas and Calleman, 2013;Halldén and Stenberg, 2018;Lane and Jordansson, 2020;Nyberg, 2023). There is also research pointing to how using domestic services goes against a deep-seated Swedish norm on equality and equity that posits that one should 'take care of one's own mess' (Calleman, 2011;Ambjörnsson, 2018). ...
... On the other hand, they were described as relatively unskilled, and in a precarious situation in the labour market. In both cases, the narratives revealed that many women felt some discomfort ht to you by Umea Universitetsbibliotek -primary account | Unauthenticated | Downloaded 05/28/24 06:30 AM UTC in failing to adhere to the Swedish equity norm that posits one should be able to care for one's own home (Calleman, 2011;Ambjörnsson, 2018). Yet, the women's negotiations around the conflicting norms between caring for their families in ways that remain culturally expected and full engagement in the labour market (Nyberg, 2023), illustrates a normative shift where the focus is diverted from equality as women's and men's equal responsibility for paid and unpaid work to dealing more exclusively with women's un/paid work. ...
Outsourcing domestic work is an established global phenomenon increasingly common in Sweden, especially since introducing the RUT reform offering tax deductions for domestic services. Little is known about Swedish families using domestic services. This article investigates the narratives of 12 Swedish women living in families using domestic services and what this means for their everyday family life. The results show that outsourcing in part is regarded as a solution to a gender equality problem as it relieves women from unpaid household work. However, the women’s narratives also reveal that even when domestic work is outsourced, the women continue to have the main responsibility for everyday family life. The article thus contributes insights into how gender equality in everyday family practices is negotiated when domestic work is outsourced.
... As domestic work blurs the line between work and private space, there is a risk of exploitation associated with the occupation (Lønsmann 2020). However, with respect to the needs of the employers and the perceived nature of the work, domestic labor remained unregulated for a long time (Calleman 2011). Documents such as letters, diaries, and autobiographies from the first half of the twentieth century point to the hardships of domestic work (Nordlund Edvinsson and Söderberg 2010). ...
... This in turn led to domestic workers being almost absent from the labor market in the 1970s (Platzer 2006). However, the market for domestic work re-emerged in the 1990s Calleman 2011). This development has been explained with reference to a number of societal changes, including growing unemployment, continuous immigration, the enlargement of the EU, increasing wage differences, increasing numbers of dual career families, and cuts in the public sector (Calleman 2011;Gavanas 2006;Platzer 2006). ...
... However, the market for domestic work re-emerged in the 1990s Calleman 2011). This development has been explained with reference to a number of societal changes, including growing unemployment, continuous immigration, the enlargement of the EU, increasing wage differences, increasing numbers of dual career families, and cuts in the public sector (Calleman 2011;Gavanas 2006;Platzer 2006). Taken together, societal changes in the latter half of the twentieth century generated a situation where more people could afford to pay for domestic services at the same time that more people were willing to work in the sector. ...
Language inevitably plays a key part in the infrastructure of transnational domestic work. Many who work and have worked in the domestic sector in Sweden have Swedish as their second language. The object of this study is to investigate the ways in which this fact is reflected in the marketing of domestic work historically as well as currently. Drawing on two datasets – personal advertisements by job seekers published in a Swedish daily during the twentieth century, and corporate marketing by contemporary cleaning agencies – the study discusses how references not only to language competence, but also to prospective language learning are used in the marketing of domestic work. While the phenomenon of domestic work, especially when performed by migrants, has been a resilient space of upset in the Swedish society for the last hundred years, the article argues that references to language are used to navigate tensions.
... The domestic service sector has low wages, but also poor work conditions. Researchers have observed how a high degree of competition and low unionization push work conditions downward, especially in small firms (Calleman 2011, Thörnquist 2015. Employment is often fluid, unstable, and with one person holding several part-time jobs simultaneously and interspersed with intervals of unemployment (Calleman 2011, Thörnqvist 2015. ...
... Researchers have observed how a high degree of competition and low unionization push work conditions downward, especially in small firms (Calleman 2011, Thörnquist 2015. Employment is often fluid, unstable, and with one person holding several part-time jobs simultaneously and interspersed with intervals of unemployment (Calleman 2011, Thörnqvist 2015. For EU immigrants, these jobs may still be attractive because of wage differences between countries. ...
Many European countries have implemented policies to revive their domestic service sectors. A common goal of these reforms has been to create employment for disadvantaged groups on the domestic labor market. I evaluate a Swedish policy where domestic service firms receive a 50% tax deduction on labor costs. Detailed data from tax records identify all formal workers and owners of firms that receive deductions. I describe the composition of workers and owners in these firms with respect to three groups targeted by Swedish policymakers: refugees, people with low education, and people who enter the workforce from long-term unemployment. I find that the shares of refugees and long-term unemployed in the subsidized sector barely exceed the shares in the full private labor force, and fall far below the shares in industrial sectors with a predominance of elementary jobs. The share of people with low education is higher than in the full private sector and on par with other low-skilled sectors. I conclude that the tax subsidy largely failed to improve employment opportunities among the target groups. An extended analysis suggests that labor immigration from other EU countries may be a partial explanation for this. EU immigrants operate half of all subsidized firms in Sweden's largest cities and nearly exclusively employ other EU immigrants.
... All aspects of the employment relationship are presented as the result of an arrangement between the employer and the domestic worker (Anderson 2001;Calleman 2011;Chen 2011) and informality characterises this relationship where they see each other as a part of the family (Johnstone 2013;Poblete 2015). This relationship is recognized by law in the United Kingdom where domestic workers can be exempted from the minimum wage requirements, if treated as a member of the family 9 . ...
This study was conducted to examine the living and working conditions of domestic workers and assess the current legal and policy gaps in Sri Lanka with a view to assisting the government of Sri Lanka to ratify the ILO’s Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189).
... Ramirez-Machado 2003, κουκιάδης 2006, Duffy 2007, ILO 2011b, 2011c ). απέναντι στα προβλήματα αυτά οι υποστηρικτές των μακροδομικών προσεγγίσεων της αγοράς εργασίας προτείνουν την επιβολή κανόνων στη λειτουργία του επαγγέλματος (Schneider 1990, Yeoh et al 1999, Rodriguez 2007, Galloti 2009, ILO 2009Johansson 1953, Anderson 2003, Almqvist 2004, Calleman 2011). αντιθέτως, πέρα από τη μίσθωσή τους που είναι δεδομένη εδώ και πολλά χρόνια και αυξάνεται συνεχώς τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες , τα τοπικά παρατηρητήρια εργασίας και άλλοι οργανισμοί τονίζουν την έντονη εκμετάλλευση των εργατριών καθώς και αρκετές περιπτώσεις κακοποίησής τους (Shoot 2009, LO 2008). ...
... Due to several demographic and socio-economic developments, such as an increase in women's labour force participation, ageing populations, and cuts A growing number of scholarly works have examined the ways that different policy regimes, such as migration, care, employment and gender regimes, sustain specific patterns in paid domestic work (Da Roit and Weicht 2013;Williams 2012;Song 2015;Hellgren 2015). However, research on policies explicitly targeting domestic employment, especially outside European countries, has been scarce (Calleman 2011;Kvist 2012;Morel 2015;Michel and Peng 2012), and the little there is tends to focus on one specific type of policy, for example tax reduction schemes or migrant care worker programmes, or on one geographical area. ...
... To achieve this transformation, such policies have focused on a variety of elements, including the demarcation of specific tasks, setting a minimum wage, delimitation of working hours, and recognition of the specific knowledge required for this work (Blackett, 2011). These initiatives have, however, met with some limitations in their implementation (Calleman, 2011;Mundlak and Shamir, 2011;Smith, 2011;Van Walsum, 2011;Vega Ruiz, 2011). ...
In Belgium, a service voucher scheme - known as Titres Services - was launched in 2004 in order to create employment and regularize the labor conditions of domestic workers. The extent to which this scheme has represented an improvement in domestic workers’ labor conditions, however, is still a matter of debate. This article explores the workers’ experience of the changes introduced by this scheme. It focuses on Latin American migrants that are currently working under this scheme in Brussels, situating them in relation to their previous experiences and the experience of other migrants who currently work in the informal market. The authors distinguish two tropes in their informants’ discourse, which describe their ambivalence regarding these changes. Using the Titres Services scheme’s rhetoric, the first one seeks to increase the social status of this occupation by presenting it as a ‘profession’. Contrarily, the second trope highlights the limits to professionalization.
... domestic services or personal assistance), and also of importance from a power perspective, as the protection offered by labour law is often weak in employment in private homes. Not the least interesting in this context is the absence of trade unions in most such areas of employment (Calleman 2011). ...
The Swedish legislation on labour migration came into force in 2008, inspired by recommendations of the European Commission. In the regulation, there is a conflict between an employer-governed labour migration with a simplified procedure and protective aims like equal treatment with workers in the country or protection against unemployment. In this article, the author investigates how these aims are balanced against each other, in the regulation, in the regulatory guidelines to migration authorities, in the practical application and in the recent transposition of European Union directives. The author also discusses the consequences of this with regard to the power relation between the employer and the employees.
... I am in particular thinking about those who come here as refugees and who can bake bread, sew, look after children, and clean' (Dagens Nyheter, 2004b). His statement, fairly awkward as it might sound at best, can nevertheless be said to represent a rather typical viewpoint in Sweden, in that it associated immigrant women with traditional low-paid work (Calleman, 2011). As Tronto (2011: 173) has underscored, when immigrants work as care workers, they become stigmatised as 'clearly designated as appropriate to do servile work marked by race, colour, religion, creed, accent, national origin, and so forth'. ...
This article considers the motivations behind a 2007 reform in Sweden to implement a tax deduction on domestic services for households, and how the reform could be passed despite extensive political opposition to it. Critical framing analysis is used to argue that at least a partial explanation for the policy reform is to be found in the inherent limitations of the gender equality policy as hitherto pursued in the country, and in the way these limitations were framed in the political debates to push for the reform. The analysis draws upon public documents and records of parliamentary and media debates.
... The situation of workers employed in 'home-services', which includes cleaning, gardening and care work, can be equally or even more precarious than it is for migrant workers employed in the restaurant sector. Union density is extremely low for cleaners in public buildings, estimated at between 5% and 10%, and workplace representatives are very rare (Calleman, 2011). For workers employed as domestic workers in private households there are no collective agreements, which means that for these workers there is no regulation of minimum wages, no rights to worker participation or industrial action, and no automatic access to unemployment benefits (Calleman, 2011: 131). ...
Fears of a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour standards may have been overstated. Nevertheless, using
Sweden as a case study, it is argued that the diminished capacity of trade unions to defend labour
standards following the Laval judgement of the European Court of Justice, together with a decline in
trade union density, a limited remit of enforcement authorities and recent changes to the Swedish
labour migration regime, may have detrimental impacts on labour standards, particularly in low-skill
low-wage occupations. In combination, these developments are creating new spaces for migrant
precariousness within the context of a formerly well-regulated Swedish labour market model.
... The 'specific regulation' model adopted in France mirrors the approach of some other European countries such as Sweden, 73 the Netherlands 74 and Spain 75 , each of which have specific laws governing the employment of domestic workers. Specific regulation contrasts with the model adopted in the UK and Ireland, where domestic workers are covered by the provisions of general employment law and there are no specific legal provisions or instruments governing the regulation of domestic work as distinct from other types of work. ...
While the rights of domestic workers are expanding in international law, including through the adoption of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention in 2011, migrant domestic workers remain particularly vulnerable to employment-related abuse and exploitation. This article explores the intersection of the employment law and migration law regimes applicable to migrant domestic workers in the United Kingdom, France and Ireland. The article suggests that the precarious immigration status of many migrant domestic workers renders employment protections, such as they exist in each jurisdiction, largely illusory in practice for this group of workers. The labour standards contained in the Domestic Workers Convention, together with the recommendations of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers on the features of an appropriate immigration regime for migrant domestic workers, are identified as providing an alternative normative model for national regulatory frameworks.
Whilst much scholarly attention of this nascent field of domestic service work focuses on protecting the rights and security of foreign/migrant domestic workers, the nature of domestic service work undertaken within national borders has escaped the attention of both researchers and public policy makers. Outlining the findings from a large household survey data in Ethiopia collected from seven major urban areas covering the period from 1994 to 2004, this paper departs from the usual focus on rights-based perspective and foreign migrant domestic service workers. Instead, the paper attempts to contribute to our understanding of the profile of domestic service providers, the significant drivers of participation in the provision of domestic services and the welfare of unpaid and paid domestic service workers in Ethiopia. In doing so, the paper contributes to the development of a greater evidence base, relevant for both researchers and public policy practitioners alike.
Like in others Latin American countries, domestic jobs represent a significant part of the women employment in Argentina. Job quality (wages, welfare, working conditions) remains often very bad. In this context, the new law (recently implemented in Argentina) is presented as an advance in terms of legal protections for domestic workers. For the first time, the law recognizes as workers all domestic workers regardless of number of hours they work per week. However, (and this is the hypothesis on this paper) lack of recognition of a specific employment status and the perpetuation of the previous social security system results in fragmentation within domestic workers. The extension of social protection to all domestic workers does not mean real access to the same social rights. The law gives less protection to domestic workers who are more exposed to social risks: domestic workers who work only a few hours for different employers. Through the analysis of regulation and parliamentary debates, the aim of this paper is to analyze the consequences of the new law in terms of social protection.
This paper focuses on the rules and regulations relating to au pair work in Sweden, and how these rules correlate with au pairing practices. The precarious position of au pairs has been highlighted before, but in addition, au pairs coming to Sweden also find themselves in an unclear work situation due to contradictory rules and regulations. While au pairs from outside the EU must apply for a work permit that defines their work as cultural exchange, this regulation does not apply to EU au pairs. As a consequence, we currently see the emergence of an almost completely unregulated— and growing—market for au pairing in Sweden. Drawing on a qualitative study of the private child care market in Sweden, this paper analyzes rules and regulations for au pairing, as well as how au pair working conditions are understood, negotiated, and realized by employing parents, and au pairs themselves. This is analyzed in relation to theoretical elaborations of paid and unpaid work, as well as discussions of care as a practice where ‘work’ and ‘emotion’ is inherently intertwined.
In the past two decades, the demand for household services in Sweden has increased rapidly, mainly because of increasing wage differentials, the increasing demands of working life, and cuts in institutional care and other social services. At the same time, globalisation (and particularly the enlargement of the EU) has led to increased access to labour from countries with considerably lower wages than Sweden.
The intersection of gender, welfare and immigration regimes has been one of the main focus of a rich scholarship on paid domestic work in Europe. This article brings into the discussion the nexus of employment and immigration law regimes to reflect on the role of legal regulation in structuring and reducing the vulnerability of domestic workers. I analyse this nexus by looking at the cases of Cyprus and Spain, two states falling under the cluster of Southern Mediterranean welfare regimes, that share certain characteristics in terms of immigration regimes, but have substantially different employment law regulation models. The first part sketches the debate on the employment law regulation of domestic work. The second part starts by giving an overview of the immigration regimes of Cyprus and Spain in relation to migrant domestic workers and then proceeds to analyse the two countries’ models and substance of employment law regulation in domestic work. The comparison of these two divergent approaches informs the debate on how the legal regulation of domestic work should be best structured. In Spain there have been recent dynamic legislative changes in the employment law regulation of domestic work. The final part of the article traces these changes and reflects on why such processes have not taken place in Cyprus.
En Argentina, como en otros países latinoamericanos, el empleo doméstico representa una parte significativa del trabajo femenino. La calidad del empleo (salarios, protecciones sociales, condiciones de trabajo) sigue todavía siendo muy deficiente. En ese contexto, la nueva ley —recientemente implementada en Argentina— se presenta como un avance en términos de protecciones laborales. Por primera vez, la ley reconoce como trabajadoras a todas las empleadas domésticas, sin importar el número de horas que trabajen. Sin embargo, la falta de reconocimiento de un estatuto laboral específico y el mantenimiento de los sistemas de seguridad prexistentes producen una importante fragmentación al interior del conjunto de trabajadoras domésticas. Esto se debe a que la extensión de las protecciones sociales no se traduce en el acceso efectivo. Por la estructura misma del sistema de protecciones sociales, la ley protege menos a las trabajadoras domésticas que se encuentran más expuestas a los riesgos sociales; es decir, a las trabajadoras domésticas que trabajan sólo algunas horas para diferentes empleadores. A través del análisis de la regulación y los debates parlamentarios, el objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las consecuencias de esta nueva ley en lo que respecta a las protecciones sociales.
The challenge that my paper deals with is the complexities of gender and violence within international refugee law, taking women exposed to male partner violence as a starting point. The focus is the definition of ‘refugee’ in the United Nations Refugee Convention and the requirement that the persecution must be based on specific grounds, the ‘nexus’ requirement. My analysis shows that the Convention is grounded in an essentialist understanding of the subject and that the preservation of its structure and integrity also means preserving the power structures in society. The argumentation suggests that it is time to abolish the ‘nexus’ requirement and the limitation of the grounds, but my conclusion is rather that we must continue to work with our frame of thought focusing on the ‘refugee situation’ and the discursive constitution of the subject in time and space.
RésuméLe présent article examine, sous l'angle du concept, de la mesure et de la règlementation, les défis associés à la promotion du travail décent pour les travailleuses domestiques. Après une brève présentation de la réalité du travail domestique qui résume les récentes estimations de son importance et de ses caractéristiques, l'article traite de certains défis conceptuels que pose la promotion du travail décent pour les travailleuses domestiques, y compris le fait qu'on ne peut caser le « travail domestique » dans aucune théorie sur les causes de l'informalité. L'article porte aussi sur la difficulté de recueillir, de compiler et de comparer des statistiques concernant les travailleuses domestiques et aborde les obstacles à la réglementation de cette main-d'oeuvre, y compris le paradoxe selon lequel de nombreux économistes cherchent à réglementer les entreprises informelles, mais déréglementent le marché du travail. L'article offre en conclusion des exemples prometteurs d'initiatives actuelles pour améliorer la voix représentative (grâce à l'organisation), la visibilité officielle (grâce à de meilleures statistiques) et la reconnaissance juridique des travailleuses domestiques (grâce à des lois et à des poursuites juridiques pour faire respecter leurs droits).
