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The Informal Domestic Workers in India—A Descriptive Mapping of NSSO Data

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Recognition of the Rights of Domestic Workers in India

Abstract

The discourse on domestic workers in India is largely dominated by policy reports from developmental organizations rather than scholarly attempts to understand its dynamics. A regular search in Google Scholar on ‘domestic workers India’ takes us to Indian cases sandwiched amongst many others (Bartolomei in Men Masculinities 13(1):87–110, 2010; Adams and Dickey in Home and hegemony: domestic service and identity politics in South and Southeast Asia University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2000), and bundled up under broad disciplinary umbrella of gender (Ray in Feminist Stud 26(3):691–718, 2000; Raghuram in Gender, Migration and Domestic Service. Routledge, Routledge International Studies of Women and Place, London, UK, 2001), with few instances of stand-alone economic study of Indian domestic workers building its own discourse.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Notice that significant scholarship on non-Indian domestic workers often hinge on migration studies. See, e.g. Yeoh and Huang (1998) and Yeoh et al. (1999) for earlier studies. See also, Moors (2003)

  2. 2.

    See, in particular, d’Souza (2010).

  3. 3.

    The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in India has a separate Sector Skills Council, focusing on domestic workers, called Domestic Workers Sector Skills Council. See http://dwsscindia.in/. The National Skill Development Agency engaged KPMG, the consulting firm, to produce a Report.

  4. 4.

    See, for instance, http://sewadelhi.org/advocacy-campaigns/domestic-workers/.

  5. 5.

    See, for example, Kalpana Sharma (2009); The Times of India (2009); The Washington Post (2008).

  6. 6.

    NSSO is indeed one of the most scientifically conducted sampling organizations in the world, given the size of India. See, in particular, Banerjee et al. (2017).

  7. 7.

    Business Line (2017).

  8. 8.

    Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship mentioned it in a Lok Sabha question. See http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=121311. Accessed 10 June 2018.

  9. 9.

    See, however, Raghuram (1999).

  10. 10.

    See also, for Delhi, Chakravarty and Negi (2016).

  11. 11.

    See the Code Structure at http://dget.nic.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/publication/Code%20Structure.pdf. Accessed 1 September 2017.

  12. 12.

    The concepts and definitions in NSS can be found at http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/concepts_golden.pdf. Accessed 10 June 2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jindal School of Liberal Arts & Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India

    Yugank Goyal

  2. Data Analyst, National Testing Agency, Noida, India

    Rakesh Kumar

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  1. Yugank Goyal
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  1. Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India

    Upasana Mahanta

  2. Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India

    Indranath Gupta

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Goyal, Y., Kumar, R. (2019). The Informal Domestic Workers in India—A Descriptive Mapping of NSSO Data. In: Mahanta, U., Gupta, I. (eds) Recognition of the Rights of Domestic Workers in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5764-0_7

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