Ayesha Shahid

Domestic work around the globe is perceived as work with low economic value and an extension of unpaid household duties that hardly gets any recognition for the work performed.1 Historically domestic work for others’ households has remained a principal way of earning a living for women. Affluent families in both developing and developed countries engage local and migrant women domestic workers to perform daily household chores.  Pakistan is one such developing country where women in large numbers are employed as domestic workers. Domestic service in Pakistan is an unorganized and unregulated form of work. Women enter into domestic service for varied reasons such as poverty, illiteracy and lack of resources that leave women with no choice but to enter into this occupation. Women also perform this low-skilled and low-paid economic activity because the male breadwinner is unable to fulfill his role as a result the burden of providing for the family’s basic needs falls on her shoulders. The female domestic worker’s main duties include cleaning, cooking, caring for the elderly and looking after the children, whereas men work as gardeners, drivers and gate keepers/guards and sometimes as cooks. There is no fixed wage structure for full-time, live-in or part-time domestic workers […]