Class, race and gender: domestic workers in South Africa

Abstract

Domestic service has long been a major sector of the South African labour market, for black women particularly, but the government has only lately begun to consider stipulating minimum employment conditions in this sphere. Union formation among domestic workers on any significant scale is also only a recent phenomenon. This article takes a preliminary look at domestic service from various angles — conceptual, historical and contemporary. A new slant is provided on the existing theoretical discussion of domestic labour, for domestic workers are here clearly distinguished from housewives. The peculiar way in which race, class and gender have all shaped the character of domestic service in South Africa is stressed at the outset, and the way various races and both sexes moved into and sometimes out of domestic service is illustrated. The authors conclude that the current trend away from the long‐established pattern of live‐in servants may well aid political mobilisation of formerly isolated domestic workers.