In a monthly discussion group comprising mainly White British women over 60 years, we talked about obtaining satisfaction from doing everyday tasks. Those who found them mundane noted that it was often more interesting if you were doing it for someone else. “Perhaps”, said one woman, “we should do housework in each other's houses instead of our own!”

Introduction

The first part of this chapter provides methodological details of the research underpinning this book, all of which had a bearing on the argument that emerged from it. The descriptive analysis in the second part situates the research respondents in the wider socio-cultural-geographical contexts from which the samples were drawn, providing early evidence regarding the role of class in mediating reproduction of other social inequalities in paid domestic work.

Methodological considerations

The research design

About half the weekly time spent on core housework goes on cleaning (Bianchi et al, 2012), the task that lies at the heart of the ‘gendered inequalities that shape responsibilities for domestic chores and childcare’ (Gabb and Fink, 2015:111; Grose, 2013). Sharing of this household task then becomes the last bastion of egalitarianism (Davis and Greenstein, 2013). Yet, the practice of outsourcing cleaning endures, and this book focuses on outsourced cleaning in two cultural settings in a particular context of demand and supply: outsourcing of cleaning in contemporary urban households, with cleaning service provision by a local or in-country migrant, live-out service-provider, who works for one or several households.

The separation of the worker's home and workplace has been key for the transformation of domestic work from servitude to service, with the conditions of live-out work deemed more favourable in terms of honouring of workers’ rights (Dill, 1994; Gregson and Lowe, 1994a,b; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001; Romero, 2002; Salzinger, 1991). It is also increasingly the preferred mode of outsourcing, because it offers the service-provider clearer boundaries between paid work and private life (for example Dill, 1994; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001; Raghuram, 1999:216). On the demand side, contemporary middle-class house designs in several world regions do not incorporate living space for a domestic worker. These points led me to conclude that understanding the live-out form of work separately would aid in attending to the gaps in published research outlined in Chapter 1.