Domestic Workers, the ‘Family Worker’ Exemption from Minimum Wage, and Gendered Devaluation of Women’s Work

Abstract Domestic workers, who work in private households carrying out tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and care for children the elderly, are overwhelmingly women often from migrant and/ or ethnic minority backgrounds. This article examines a stark example of domestic workers’ exclusion labour law protection, regulation 57(3) National Minimum Wage Regulations, which exempts employers paying minimum wage where worker lives their employer’s family home is treated ‘as member family’ relation to accommodation, meals, leisure activities. Drawing on feminist theory divisions between ‘productive’ outside versus ‘reproductive’ within it, it argues that exemption’s application has reflected gendered devaluation labour, stemming its conflation with normally performed free by ‘private sphere’ home. Focusing December 2020 Employment Tribunal (ET) judgment Puthenveettil v Alexander & ors, held exemption was unlawful indirectly discriminatory grounds sex, provides timely in-depth analysis prospects challenging light limitations legal protections workers UK.