Domestic Service in a Global Perspective: Gender, Migration, and Ethnic Niches

This article examines domestic service in Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Africa, Australia, India and Japan from early modernity to the present to reveal broad trends in gendered labour, migration and ethnic strategies that are often missed by local and national approaches. It detects a feminisation of the occupation and attempts to find an explanation for this in particular aspects of modernity. It shows that migrants predominated in the sector in almost all of the places examined. It argues that, at least for international migrants, working in domestic service reflected a combination of economic circumstances and ethnocultural preferences that is akin, in some respects, to the formation of ethnic niches.