Project description
Uncovering the hidden realities of paid domestic work
Paid domestic work can serve as a lens to examine how globalisation impacts social inequality. With 52.6 million domestic workers worldwide, of which 43 million are women and 7 million are children, the implications of globalisation on this sector are massive. The ERC-funded DomEQUAL project aims to provide a comprehensive global analysis of paid domestic workers’ social positions. This includes examining their socio-economic and legal standing while employing an ‘intersectionality’ approach on a large scale. By conducting a diachronic comparison spanning from the 1950s to the present day, DomEQUAL focuses on nine countries (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, India, Italy. the Philippines, Spain, and Taiwan) that offer diverse perspectives due to their varying positions in the globalised world.
Objective
How does globalisation impact the construction of social inequality? DomEQUAL tackles this question through a study on paid domestic work (PDW). Of the 52.6 million PDWs in the world today, 43 million are women and 7 million are children. The multidimensional transformations brought about by globalisation with the intensification of international migration, the urbanisation of rural and indigenous populations, and changes in household organisation and welfare regimes have a massive impact on PDWs at the global level.
New research possibilities are open since PDW has become an object of global governance. The ILO Convention 189 is the most evident sign of this. For researchers, this has the important effect of making new data and tools for analysis available. DomEQUAL profits from this opportunity to provide a global comparison of PDWs’ social positions, especially in the socio-economic and legal fields. It also provides the opportunity to experiment an ‘intersectionality’ approach to PDW on a large scale. Finally, it analyses which type of global/local actor is more effective in improving the legal framework for PDWs. In so doing, it aims at a theoretical and methodological contribution that goes beyond PDW and addresses the construction of social inequalities within globalisation more generally.
This is done through a diachronic comparison (1950s-now) of the changing situation of PDWs in the following countries: Spain, Italy and Germany in Europe; Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil in South America; and India, the Philippines and Taiwan in Asia. These nine countries are interesting cases for comparison because of their different positions within the process of globalisation, the specificities of their socio-cultural contexts, and also because they have all experienced mobilisations for PDWs’ rights. The project will be carried out by the PI and two senior post-doc researchers based in Italy, with the support of nine experts in the selected countries.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
30123 Venezia
Italy