Household Work Sociology

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Household work is traditionally viewed as a women’s work and as a result tends to be more devalued in our society because as the value of a housewife’s is non-paid labour is diminished so too is the labour of a woman being paid to do a housewife’s job, of equal significance in its devaluation is the presumption that it is an ‘any female can do it job’ (Coley, 1981, p.7). Domestic workers are among the most exploited groups in a society marked by extreme inequality. Domestic workers suffered triple inequality – that is discrimination based class, sex and aggravated by generally weak position in the labour market. “These inequalities are related to the capitalist system of production in south Africa, which is not unique,

They travelled long distances to work and back home or illegally stayed with employers and were paid meager salaries (Cock 1980: 19). Due to long working hours and the need to travel long distances home, domestic workers in many instances were exposed to family deprivation. Husbands were contract workers visiting their homes once a year and domestic workers often had to leave their children with grandmothers and / or other caregivers for long periods (Cock 1989: 43). The long working hours of domestic workers further added to their social isolation as they had little time for leisure. Some could attend church services once a month on their monthly day off (Cock 1989: 48). In the recent years the number of domestic workers in South Africa has oscillated at around one million. Globally the number of domestic workers is approximate 52.6 million, 83% of whom are women (I.L.O. 2012). In South Africa, the estimated number of domestic workers range between 861,000 (statistics south Africa 2013:xi) and 1.15 million (South African Institute of race relations,2013), 96% of whom are women (statistics South Africa

“Secondary analysis involves the use of existing data, collected for the purpose of a prior study, in order to pursue a research interest which is distinct from that of the original work; this may be new research question or an alternative perspective on the original question (Hinds et al; 1997; szabo and strang, 1997). Case studies will be used as a type of qualitative research design. ‘The case study is an intensive investigation of a single unit. This unit can vary: from individual people, families, communities, social groups, organizations and institutions, events and countries’ (Babbie and Mouton, 2011). The following case studies where used in this research paper: “labour legislation in Emfuleni’s domestic workers sector: Awareness and compliance” by Marais, C(2007), “ Enforcement of laws regulating domestic work-a case study of south Africa” written by Sjoberg,E 2011, “ Domestic workers and socio-economic rights : A South African case study” author: Tanzer, Z. 2013, “ An investigation to assess whether or not the employers of domestic workers do comply with the minimum conditions of employment as laid in Sectoral determination 7: Domestic worker sector” written by Sibiya,T. 2006. These case studies are relevant to the research because they assist in answering the research question. They give an intensive investigation of domestic workers and their employers. The given case