Domestic Workers in Argentina

In Argentina, until 2020, paid work in households was the main occupation for women and, at the same time, had the highest feminization rates. This sector had gained labor rights protection late and partially. The transformations in its composition, deepened during the pandemic crisis, once again challenge the scope of these protections, designed for a type of employment relationship that differs from the ones actually existing. This work proposes a review of the historical configuration of the sector, with special attention to the transformations of the last decade, to consider the scope and challenges of recognizing rights for a labor sector predominantly comprising women in Argentina and around the world. The work proposes a study of the sector in three dimensions: representations, regulations, and labor markets. The first dimension, representations, addresses, through the analysis of political and media discourse, the allusions and omissions regarding the sector, based on the hypothesis of a subject that is omitted in communication. The majority of public discourse has established an implicit dialogue within the collective of workers, with references to female workers in the third person. It will be observed, in particular, to what extent the pandemic contributed to reinforcing or transforming these representations. The second dimension, regulations, observes the regulatory transformations that promoted the recognition of the labor character of these social relationships historically excluded from labor law. After a brief overview of its initial regulations, the study will focus on the innovations that promoted labor registration and access to rights. The guiding hypothesis of this exploration is the limited capacity of the regulations to respond to the particularities of this labor sector. To support this, an analysis of the labor market is carried out. Special employment contract regime for the staff of private households.