Cleaning up: The Growth of Outsourced Domestic Housecleaning Services in Johannesburg, South Africa

This paper considers the reasons beyond people’s use of outsourced domestic housecleaning services from a sociological perspective in a South African context. Outsourced domestic housecleaning services provoke a revolution in domestic work as it transforms the personal, often exploitative employment relationship between domestic worker and employer into an impersonal triangular employment relationship between manager, domestic worker and client (former employer). However, it is unclear as to why people prefer using these domestic housecleaning services in South Africa. Some international studies have shown that a reduction in employment costs, an increase of flexibility by allowing more leisure time for clients, the growing number of middle-age and “empty-nest” households, an increase in dual income households, the growth of disposable personal incomes of households and an aging population, influence the use of housecleaning services. However, South Africa has different dynamics and the nature of domestic work differs by race, class and gender. It is unclear, whether it is mainly the White middle-class population who are using these domestic housecleaning services, or is the rising Black African middle-class using it too? Are only married couples using these services or do single men and women acquiring these services too? This research paper aims to address this gap by analysing interviews and survey questionnaires of clients of three major outsourced domestic housecleaning services in Johannesburg, South Africa.