In some cases, the contribution and skill of servants whose work encompassed complex management tasks in large households have been highly valued.In Britain, a highly developed system of domestic service peaked towards the close of the Victorian era (a period known in the United States as the Gilded Age and in France as the Belle Époque), perhaps reaching its most complicated and rigidly structured state during the Edwardian period which reflected the limited social mobility before World War I.In 2015, the International Labour Organization (ILO), based on national surveys or censuses of 232 countries and territories, estimated the number of domestic workers at 67.1 million,[3] but the ILO itself states that "experts say that due to the fact that this kind of work is often hidden and unregistered, the total number of domestic workers could be as high as 100 million".Since domestic staff predominantly come from disadvantaged groups with less access to education, they are often vulnerable and uninformed of their rights, especially in rural areas.[11] Currently, there are 1.8 million domestic workers, and tens of thousands of people are believed to be in forced labor in the United States.[12] America's domestic home help workers, most of them female members of minority groups, earn low wages and often receive no retirement or health benefits because of the lack of basic labor protections.One of these causes is that with more women taking up full-time jobs, a dually employed household with children places a heavy burden on parents.The majority of domestic workers in China, Mexico, India, and other populous developing countries, are people from the rural areas who are employed by urban families.On 30 March 2009, Peru adopted a law banning employers from requiring domestic workers to wear a uniform at public places.[25] Chile adopted a similar law in 2014, also banning employers to require domestic workers to wear uniform at public places.[28] Usually, in a practice often called "confiage" or entrusting, such as for restaveks in Haiti, parents in the rural poverty make an agreement with someone in the cities who would house and send their child to school in return for domestic work.The International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour identified that these risks include: long and tiring working days; use of toxic chemicals; carrying heavy loads; handling dangerous items such as knives, axes and hot pans; insufficient or inadequate food and accommodation, and humiliating or degrading treatment including physical and verbal violence, and sexual abuse.Their isolation is increased by their invisibility in the public sphere and the repetitive, intangible nature of their work decreases its value, making the workers themselves more dispensable.[41] While working in a dominantly female privatized world can prove disadvantageous for domestic workers, many women have learned how to help one another move upward economically.Many subcontract their services to more established women workers, creating an important apprenticeship type of learning experience that can produce better, more independent opportunities in the future.Approximately five percent of Hong Kong's population are FDWs, about 98.5% of them are women, performing household tasks such as cooking, serving, cleaning, dishwashing and child care.In modern times, it has been a norm among upper and upper-middle-class families in the Philippines to hire at least one maidservant-caretaker (katulong/kasambahay/yaya) to care for the household and children.Some wealthy families also section off an area or house where all the maidservants sleep or a part of the kitchen where they eat separate from the master's table.Starting with the Foreign Maid Scheme in 1978, Malaysia (with whom there were special immigration arrangements), Bangladesh, Burma, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand were recruiting grounds for domestic workers.The report stated that the Gulf country employed nearly 1.5 million women domestic workers from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Philippines.[66] Many such girls come from tribal lands in India such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and some parts of West Bengal, Odisha and Assam due to fewer or no work opportunities available locally.The South wanted to keep segregation alive and hence passed legislation such as the Jim Crow Laws post-Civil war which denied African Americans of legal equality and political rights.Many African American women migrated to the North for better work opportunities and higher wages compared to their employment options in the South.The African American women who worked as domestic workers were generally treated as poor, childlike beings that were seen as victims of their own ignorance of living in communities of crime and other societal infringements.[75] Whites also pointed to the practice of pan toting as proof that “a Negro could not help but steal”, thereby reinforcing stereotypes of “black inferiority and dependency” and rationalizing racist paternalism.[78][74] (Household employees working at least two days a week for the same person were added to Social Security coverage in 1950, along with nonprofit workers and the self-employed.Even if the African American domestic workers wanted to advance in society, it was nearly impossible because the racial structures in the United States rarely allowed them class mobility.[74] Nearly ninety percent of African American women worked as domestic workers during the Civil Rights Movement era.Professions like: Tutor or Governess, secretary, librarian, private chaplains, physician, personal trainer, and Lady's companion.Some domestic workers have become notable, including: Abdul Karim (the Munshi), servant of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom; Paul Burrell, butler to Diana, Princess of Wales; Moa Martinson, author of proletarian literature, kitchen maid; and Charles Spence, Scottish poet, stonemason and footman.
Memorial valuing the work of Maria Home, the servant in
Warwick Castle
(1834)
A domestic servant ironing a lace
doily
with
GE
electric iron, ca. 1908
Child maid servant in
India
. Child domestic workers are common in India, with the children often being sent by their parents to earn extra money, although it is banned by the government.
Male servants carrying a
palanquin
and female maid with a traditional fan (Korea c. 1904)
Kenyan domestic worker Lucy Nyangosi working in a
Nairobi
household, 2016