The Resurgence of Paid Domestic Work in Europe and Spain Objectives

This dissertation examines the sources and effects of the dramatic increase of the paid domestic sector in Europe, particularly in Spain. This project addresses three main questions about social inequality. First, the thesis analyzes how public policy debates framed the change in this economic sector in relation to issues of gender equality and shifts in immigration across the EU and in Spain. Second, this study investigates the relationship between employing a paid domestic worker and the gender division of paid and unpaid work within families. Third, this research analyzes the implications of increases in paid domestic work for changes in inequality between families over time. At a theoretical level, this thesis seeks to examine how the expansion of this economic sector, which occurred mostly through migrant labor, is at the core of new divides based on the unequal distribution across social classes of the gender division of labor within families. This research connects the dynamics of the pay domestic work sector to changes in the effects of gender, ethnicity and class on stratification and the meaning of social inequality in Europe.