XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Paid domestic work and inequalities in Brazil: Contemporary tendencies and future horizons

• In Event: Trabalho doméstico pago e desigualdades no Brasil: Análises interseccionais sobre ativismos, tecnologias e violação de direitos

Abstract

This paper examines the centrality of paid domestic work in the formation and reproduction of inequalities in Brazilian society, especially in relation to the intersections of class, gender, and race. Based on a review of the literature and sociodemographic data, as well as on interviews with governmental and social actors, the authors analyze tendencies in the exploitation of a labor force that is predominantly female, Black, and poorly remunerated in the decade of 2013-2023. The first section of the paper examines the growth in activism and political organization by domestic workers and the advances and setbacks in their struggle for rights, including the 2013 constitutional amendment, the 2015 law, and the 2018 ratification of ILO’s 189 convention. The second section highlights the reaction of middle-class whiteness against the relative ascension of domestic workers and the role of this reaction in the conservative movement that brought the far right to power in 2018. The third section examines the intensification in the exploitation of paid domestic work by the middle and upper classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, stressing the forms of resistance established by trade unions and other social organizations against the increased professional precariousness of the period. The fourth and last section evaluates the perspectives for domestic workers’ struggle for recognition and rights after January 2023, with the start of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s third term in office. The paper is co-written with Valeria Ribeiro Corossacz (Università Roma Tre, Italy).

Author

• Mauro Porto, Tulane University