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Who Uses Paid Domestic Labor in Australia? Choice and Constraint in Hiring Household Help

Author

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  • Janeen Baxter
  • Belinda Hewitt
  • Mark Western

Abstract

This paper investigates why some Australian households use paid help with domestic labor while others do not. Consistent with earlier studies, the analysis examines hypotheses relating to resources, objective demand, and gender attitudes. Additionally, this paper examines the impact of attitudes toward using paid domestic labor, an area that has not been investigated previously. The findings suggest that resources and objective demand provide the parameters within which employing household help is made possible or necessary, but beliefs about the appropriateness of this strategy also play a role in determining whether Australian households use paid domestic labor. The paper concludes that understanding whether Australian households pay for domestic help is dependent not just on the level of resources and objective demand but also on whether individuals view paid domestic help as an appropriate strategy for undertaking domestic work.

Suggested Citation

  • Janeen Baxter & Belinda Hewitt & Mark Western, 2009. "Who Uses Paid Domestic Labor in Australia? Choice and Constraint in Hiring Household Help," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 1-26.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:15:y:2009:i:1:p:1-26
    DOI: 10.1080/13545700802248989
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Shire, Karen A. & Schnell, Rainer & Noack, Marcel, 2017. "Determinants of outsourcing domestic labour in conservative welfare states: Resources and market dynamics in Germany," Duisburger Beiträge zur soziologischen Forschung 2017-04, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of Sociology.
    2. Ali Fakih & Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2013. "Female Labour Force Participation in MENA's Manufacturing Sector: The Implications of Firm-related and National Factors," CIRANO Working Papers 2013s-46, CIRANO.
    3. François-Xavier Devetter, 2016. "Can Public Policies Bring about the Democratization of the Outsourcing of Household Tasks?," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 48(3), pages 365-393, September.
    4. Halldén, Karin & Stenberg, Anders, 2013. "The Relationship between Hours of Domestic Services and Female Earnings: Panel Register Data Evidence from a Reform," Working Paper Series 4/2013, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    5. Stancanelli, Elena G. F. & Stratton, Leslie S., 2010. "Her Time, His Time, or the Maid's Time: An Analysis of the Demand for Domestic Work," IZA Discussion Papers 5253, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Bussemakers, Carlijn & van Oosterhout, Kars & Kraaykamp, Gerbert & Spierings, Niels, 2017. "Women’s Worldwide Education–employment Connection: A Multilevel Analysis of the Moderating Impact of Economic, Political, and Cultural Contexts," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 28-41.
    7. Fakih, Ali & Marrouch, Walid, 2012. "Determinants of Domestic Workers' Employment: Evidence from Lebanese Household Survey Data," IZA Discussion Papers 6822, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Ali Fakih & Walid Marrouch, 2014. "Who hires foreign domestic workers? evidence from Lebanon," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 48(3), pages 339-352, July-Sept.
    9. Adam Ka-Lok Cheung & Erin Hye-Won Kim, 2022. "Domestic Outsourcing in an Ultra-Low Fertility Context: Employing Live-in Domestic Help and Fertility in Hong Kong," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(4), pages 1597-1618, August.
    10. Placide Abasabanye & Franck Bailly & François-Xavier Devetter, 2018. "Does Contact Between Employees and Service Recipients Lead to Socially More Responsible Behaviours? The Case of Cleaning," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 813-824, December.
    11. Martin Abraham & Natascha Nisic & Miriam Trübner & Hanna Walch & Anja Wunder, 2024. "The role of generalized trust and control in the employment of domestic help – An experimental case study for Germany and the UK," Rationality and Society, , vol. 36(2), pages 230-253, May.
    12. Lyn Craig & Janeen Baxter, 2016. "Domestic Outsourcing, Housework Shares and Subjective Time Pressure: Gender Differences in the Correlates of Hiring Help," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 271-288, January.
    13. Nurul Nadia Abd Aziz, 2018. "Perception of Employers’ Children towards Domestic Helpers," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 8(5), pages 728-740, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Paid domestic labor; housework; attitudes; gender; JEL Codes: J12; J16; J22;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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