Misconstrued Notions and Misplaced Interventions: An Assessment of State Policy on Domestic Work in India

Given the informal employment relationship that marks the paid domestic work sector, this paper examines the important state interventions in India which follow the ILO convention on domestic work. The understanding that the sector is homogenous and thus could be regulated or managed through uniform intervention, whether legal or otherwise, has prevailed. This was even when existing studies have demonstrated the existence of segmented labour markets with varying employer, work and worker identities. The extension of the Minimum Wages Act to domestic workers, the draft National Policy on Domestic Work, and the Domestic Workers Sector Skill Council (DWSSC) set up under the National Skill Development Council of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship of Government of India, are examined in the paper in detail. The paper highlights how various state interventions have outlined the sector, the work, the workers and their everyday experiences and negotiations in terms of extending or framing these interventions. Examining the assumptions and objectives that have defined the formation of Domestic Workers Sector Skill Development council and its functioning, the paper argues that the attempt to corporatize the sector is a classic case of how the state tends to ignore the specificities that feature the sector leading to its poor impact.