November 23, 2004
The long decline of domestic service
Red Ted muses about the decline of domestic service.
Here are the fluctuations in the number of domestic servants in the United States since 1880.
I sometimes think that domestic service might be due for a comeback, what with the inequality in incomes these days. But the small fraction of the labor force employed in domestic service likely reflects (1) changes in technology that make household tasks much quicker than they used to be (2) declines in fertility reducing the need for domestic servants as child-minders (3) compositional change in personal services occupations, with high income households employing a variety of specialized service providers rather than domestic servants expected to do multiple tasks.
NB: Because the census asks people to describe the tasks involved in their job, this decline is not just due to people relabelling themselves as holding other slightly higher status occupations.
Posted by robe0419 at November 23, 2004 10:39 AM | TrackBackThis surprises me rather. Nannies and au pairs are clearly domestic servants, and I would have thought that this category has exploded since the 1970s. Do your figures include child-minders?
Posted by: Marc at November 30, 2004 03:55 AM