Articulating Differences and Inequalities

Paid Domestic Workers’ and Housewives’ Struggles for Rights in Uruguay and Paraguay

By Raquel Rojas Scheffer

This article is a shortened version of the eponymous MECILA Working Paper, which was originally published by the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America in 2020 and can be read here.

1. Introduction

Pictures of demonstrations in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. In all of them, women holding brooms, dusters and mops, one with a young child in her arms, another holding onto a kid that walks by her side, some others carrying signs and posters with demands. If it were not for the claims in those posters or the difference in time – easily noticeable by the better quality of the digital photos and the presence of smartphones in some of them – one could think all these pictures were taken at the same demonstration. But they were not. Three of them were taken in the early 2000s, at a demonstration of housewives claiming retirement rights. The other three show a demonstration that took place in 2018, in which domestic workers demanded the same right to the minimum wage as any other worker in the country. The similarities between the groups are striking. But even more striking seem to be – at least for some actors – the differences.

Housewives’ and domestic workers’ organisations have been present in Latin America for decades. These groups not only perform – at least to a certain extent – the same kinds of tasks. They also tend to share an interest in the valorisation of domestic work: If this activity were recognised as work, housewives could claim retirement rights, while domestic workers would be granted the same labour rights as any other worker. But even while sharing the historical burden of care work, there are other social hierarchies that interrupt the common experience of these women and hinder the creation of alliances between them.

The first – and most obvious – is the class dimension. On the one hand, women from middle and upper-classes, many of them members of housewives’ organisations, are the ones that have enough income either not to be in need of selling their labour power and able to stay at home, or are able to outsource domestic work by hiring another woman to do it. On the other hand, the women employed as domestic workers are those who could not find a better paying job or a position with better working conditions, due to their lack of training and experience and/or their young age. What is more, paid domestic work is not only an occupation typically performed by women from lower social classes, but also by racialised women. As Lan (2006: 14) puts it, “women of particular ethnic groups are viewed as more naturally suited to it.” In this vein, an analysis of the composition of domestic work reveals a certain ethnic specificity of women employed in this sector, for instance in Latin America, where indigenous people or Afro-descendants tend to be overrepresented.

Differences and similarities thus cut across the relations between domestic workers and housewives. This paper analyses the way these are negotiated and the meaning that is attached to them, and particularly, how the articulation of differences could lead either to further reproducing inequalities between these groups, or to contesting and overcoming them. In this sense, my interest here lies in discussing how conviviality (Mecila 2017) is negotiated between these women that adopt contrasting positions in the social structure.

Unlike other authors (Gorbán and Tizziani 2014; Kofes 2001; Lan 2006; Vidal 2007, 2012; Wasser 2018) the focus of my study and, particularly, the empirical data on which the analysis relies, are not on everyday interactions that take place within the domestic sphere at an interpersonal level, but rather on relations between organisations that seek an impact on political and legal arenas. Even if the asymmetries that characterise the encounter between domestic workers and their employers are basically the same, the level of the analysis changes. Hence, I am interested in discussing how representatives of domestic workers’ and housewives’ organisations describe their relation to each other, and the effect that this positioning has on their chances of building alliances and achieving their goals.

In order to illustrate this discussion, I analyse the cases of Uruguay and Paraguay, the two smallest countries in the Southern Cone Region of Latin American in terms of territorial extension, population and economy. Domestic work is an important activity for women in both, inasmuch as 13.13% of the female working population in Uruguay and 17.1% in Paraguay are employed in this sector (ILO 2015). Furthermore, in both countries most domestic workers are national citizens, unlike other cases like Argentina, Chile or Costa Rica, where immigration rates tend to be high (Soto et al. 2016). However, despite these similarities, the way domestic workers organise and struggle for their rights in Uruguay and Paraguay differs at many levels, particularly regarding their relation to housewives’ organisations. It is precisely because of this combination of similarities and contrasts that I consider these cases suitable for an analysis of the way differences and inequalities around domestic work are negotiated.

It is noteworthy that the relation between housewives’ and domestic workers’ organisations in Uruguay and Paraguay – as well as in other Latin American countries – is complex. As already stated, they have some points of convergence, inasmuch as both groups have interest in valorising domestic work. However, many housewives – and particularly, those heading their organisations – in turn hire domestic workers, adding tension to their relation. This means that housewives’ organisations could be regarded either as allies of domestic workers – when claiming for the recognition of domestic work as work – or as their adversary, when domestic workers are negotiating higher wages and better working conditions.

This paper presents five sections and some concluding remarks. The next section describes the interpenetration of domestic work and gender conceptions, paying particular attention to other social asymmetries that characterise the relations around paid domestic work. Subsequently, I discuss the link between the lower value attributed to this occupation and the characteristics of the people that perform it. Sections 4 and 5 present the data from my case studies, drawing on participant observations and interviews carried out in Montevideo and Asunción. Finally, I seek to contrast the evidence from these two countries and analyse them in light of the theoretical considerations presented before, discussing how the negotiations of differences are intertwined with disputes over inequalities, and arguing that ‘racialised’ contexts use ethnic differences to naturalise the undervaluing of domestic workers and justify the subordinated position they assume in society.

2. For Love or Money, But Always for Women

By definition, domestic work refers to the labour performed within the household, including tasks such as cleaning, washing, cooking or taking care of other people, particularly children, the elderly or those who cannot look after themselves. These chores have been historically socialised as the responsibility of women, giving rise to an unequal distribution of tasks in the household. But this gendered division of labour not only determines differences in the allocation of responsibilities and the scope of execution of activities – that is, men’s work in the public sphere of the labour market

and women’s in the private sphere of the household – but also creates distinctions based on gender in terms of access to rights, rewards and power. In the words of Acker:

Gender […] is defined as inequalities, divisions, and differences socially constructed around assumed distinctions between female and male. Gender is a basic organising principle in social life, a principle for allocation of duties, rights, rewards, and power, including the means of violence. Gender is a factor in organising daily life for individuals, families, communities, and societies as large structures (Acker 2004: 20).

Ideas and assumptions built around the concepts of male and female are the basis of the distribution of tasks within and beyond the household and have a bearing on the value assigned to different activities. The work of Silvia Federici is illustrative in this sense. This author discusses the emergence of capitalism focusing on the imposition of the sexual division of labour. According to Federici, this division introduces not only a differentiation in terms of tasks that men and women should perform, but also in terms of their experiences, their lives and their relation to capital and other workers (Federici 2004: 115). This arrangement was of great importance for the development of capitalism, since presenting the labour performed in the household as something that does not produce value operates as a form of primitive accumulation. In her words:

the power-difference between women and men and the concealment of women’s unpaid-labour under the cover of natural inferiority, have enabled capitalism to immensely expand the “unpaid part of the working day,” and use the (male) wage to accumulate women’s labour […] Thus, primitive accumulation has been above all an accumulation of differences, inequalities, hierarchies, divisions, which have alienated workers from each other and even from themselves (Federici 2004: 115).

This means that, even if the organisation of the household and of production are intertwined (Jelin 1977), this relation is normally overlooked. Let’s take, for instance, the Fordist model, where the man acts as the economic provider – the “breadwinner” – while the woman is responsible for domestic and care work. The kinds of work performed by men and women are presented as if part of parallel and disconnected worlds, hiding the nexus between capitalist production and care (Carrasco 2003: 27; Jelin 2010) and attributing value to one – that deserves a wage – while denying it to the other (see next section).

At the beginning of this section I pointed out that domestic work is the work performed within the household. This does not mean, however, that it must necessarily be carried out by a member of the family. Many people choose to outsource these chores, hiring another person who assumes the responsibility of cleaning the household and/or caring and looking after its members, creating relations that include the explicit movement of money (Folbre and Nelson 2000). This is referred to as paid domestic work. However, even when someone outside the family is hired to carry out this work, the gender specificity remains.

Different studies have indicated that even when both partners are inserted in the labour market and a third person is hired to take over the domestic duties, the woman of the household is still in charge of organising, managing and supervising these tasks, which are, in turn, normally performed by another woman (Gutiérrez-Rodríguez 2010, 2013; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Lan 2006; Rollins 1985; Romero 2002). Therefore, instead of considering paid and unpaid domestic work as dichotomous categories, they can be seen as “structural continuities that characterise the feminisation of domestic labour across the public and private spheres” (Lan 2003: 189).

Of course, this is not to say that there is no difference between the labour performed and the position assumed by a housewife and a domestic worker. Although these women share some social expectations related to the construction and assignation of ‘femininity’ in society, this common point is interrupted by other social hierarchies that structure their encounter (Gutiérrez-Rodríguez 2010: 9–10). As I seek to show in the next pages, “women have different experiences of housework, mediated by differences such as class, age and ‘race’” (Palmer 1989, cited by Anderson 2000: 17). 

The first – and most obvious – is the class difference. In this regard, different authors have pointed out that the liberation of women from the burden of domestic duties, in order to be able to perform paid and more highly valued occupations, should be described rather as the liberation of some women, that is, those from the upper classes (Anderson 2000; Blofield 2012; Duarte 1993; Gutiérrez-Rodríguez 2010, 2013; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Rollins 1985). In fact, this liberation does not occur through a negotiation of the distribution of responsibilities within the household – e.g. between men and women – but through the outsourcing of these tasks to other people, more specifically, to other women. Moreover, according to Anderson (2000: 19), employing a domestic worker appears as the solution to avert gender and generational conflict over domestic work in the household. In the same vein, although a little more radical, Duarte (1993: 178–79) states that “the possibility of having domestic service reaffirms machismo and patriarchy within the family”.[1]

This accounts for the creation of the demand for domestic work, but not for the supply. To this end, it is necessary to consider long-standing migration processes from rural to urban areas, and on a different scale – but maintaining the same logic – from countries of the “Global South” to those of the “Global North”. In both cases, these processes involve large contingents of people who, attracted by perceived opportunities – real or not – of better remuneration and living conditions, move to areas of greater economic development. In the case of Latin America, this has translated into profound processes of urbanisation and rural-urban migration (Jelin 1977). But gaining access to the labour market once in the city is not easy, particularly when the aim is to obtain industrial jobs, which require certain qualifications. Domestic work emerges, then, as an option for entering the labour market, especially for women, since they do not need to show credentials to prove they are suited for it and there is a relatively stable demand.

The fact that this occupation is regarded as “women’s work” has to do with the belief that women are intrinsically suited to it, as well as with the experience that many women already have after having performed – or helped their mothers perform – domestic duties in their homes. In addition, there is also an unequal access to education linked to gender, which is exacerbated within lower social classes and affects the access of women to jobs that require certain levels of education. This highlights that the experience of “being a woman” is mediated by social class, as well as by other factors such as area of residence and even family size, inasmuch as the opportunities of accessing quality education are significantly reduced in rural and impoverished areas where it is also common that large families prioritise boys’ over girls’ education. For these reasons, paid domestic work has been historically performed by rural migrants and other women that have not been able to access higher-paying jobs, either because of their young age, their lack of training, or their pressing housing and food needs that tend to be covered through this occupation (Jelin 1977).

In any case, domestic workers not only “set free” their (female) employers from housework, they also play an important role in affirming the household’s social status. In this vein, authors analysing this labour relation in the Latin American context (Costa 2018: 187; Gill 1994: 51) have stated that hiring a domestic worker is how upper and middle-class families demonstrate an advantageous position in the social structure. This means that class relations cut across paid domestic work not only because lower-class women are the ones performing this job, but also because hiring a domestic worker is an indication of belonging to the upper-classes insofar as it shows that a particular household assumes a higher position in the social structure compared to others that cannot externalise housework. Thus, the hierarchical relations that characterise domestic work are not only to be found between employers and workers, but also between households with and without domestic workers.

This status affirmation is even more important for the woman of the household (Anderson 2000: 21), since it is she who, by hiring a domestic worker, can access better paid jobs and/or enjoy more leisure time. At the same time, it is also she who tries the hardest to distance herself from the domestic worker (Kofes 2001: 43), with whom she continues to share the responsibility of household duties. In addition to class differences, employers often resort to other – sometimes even more visible – differences, such as “racial” or ethnic traits.

I have already mentioned that paid domestic work is not only an occupation typically performed by women from lower social classes, but also by racialised women. This is related to historical colonial relations (Bernardino-Costa 2007, 2014; Cumes 2014; Durin 2014a, 2014b; García Castro 1993), as well as to the aforementioned migration processes: The fact that migrant women tend to be employed mainly as domestic workers is often linked to differences between employer and worker that are visible to the naked eye, such as skin colour or other physical features. But these differences are sometimes more subtle, particularly when domestic workers are citizens of the country in which they work. This means that racialisation processes can also take place within national borders.

According to Lan (2006: 11), even if the construction of social boundaries – drawing the lines between “us” and “them” – is many times based on the political-legal regulation of citizenship and national borders, it also involves symbolic struggles and local negotiations in the interactions that take place between employers and workers. As I seek to demonstrate with the study of specific cases, these symbolic struggles and negotiations occur not only in relation to citizenship or more “obvious” ethnic or “racial” traits but can also rest on differences of language or place of origin (urban/rural). In the end, regardless of the criterion for affirming the difference between groups, the process of racialisation has the same result: it naturalises, inferiorises and excludes those identified as belonging to a “racial group” marked as “different” by the hegemonic normative subject (Miles and Torres 2018; Anthias and Yuval-Davis 2005), producing inequality by creating barriers that hinder the access to desirable goods and positions. As we will see, the category “race” can be very important in the production of differences between employer and worker, differences which could also be articulated in order to legitimise social inequalities.

Keep reading here to find out more about the struggle for recognition and rights.

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Notes

[1] My own translation from the original Spanish: “La posibilidad de disponer de servicio doméstico reafirma el machismo y el patriarcado en el seno de la familia”.

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About the Author

Raquel Rojas Scheffer finished her PhD studies in Sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin, as part of the International Research Training Group Entre Espacios/Zwischen Räumen. Prior to that, she obtained an MA in Social Sciences at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, thanks to a DAAD Scholarship. Raquel is originally from Paraguay, where she earned a Specialist Degree in Social Development from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) and a BA in Social Sciences from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción. Her research focuses on political systems, social policies, inequalities, social movements and labour relations.

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Citation: Raquel Rojas Scheffer, Articulating Differences and Inequalities Paid Domestic Workers’ and Housewives’ Struggles for Rights in Uruguay and Paraguay, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 11.08.2026, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/67153

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