Domestic Work and the Dual Crisis of Care: The Case of Jamaica

Domestic workers play a largely unacknowledged but nevertheless vital role in Jamaica’s care economy, providing both direct and indirect care services to thousands of households. With a dearth of formal care services, and in the context of a rapidly ageing population, high levels of emigration, and rising female labour force participation, demand for paid domestic work in Jamaica will continue to grow. Yet domestic workers experience decent work deficits, including low wages and inadequate social protections, and lack access to care rights and services for themselves and their families. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative case study data in the form of focus groups with domestic workers and a survey of 210 women employed as domestic workers in the greater Kingston area, this paper argues that domestic workers experience Jamaica’s care crisis as a crisis of social reproduction: while their work helps middle- and upper-income households meet care needs, domestic workers lack of access to key resources (including money, time, rights, and services) squeezes social-reproductive capacities and undermines their ability to provide for and maintain their own households. The paper employs a feminist political economy lens to situate this crisis within a broader political economic context of demographic shifts, austerity measures, and the privatization of costs and responsibilities for social reproduction under neoliberalism in Jamaica. In conclusion, the paper examines the role of the Jamaica Household Workers’ Union (JHWU) in organizing, promoting, and protecting domestic workers’ rights, including access to social protection, and to training and skills development. As the case of the JHWU suggests, strengthening domestic workers’ collective representation is not only key to achieving decent work for domestic workers and addressing their care needs, but to strengthening Jamaica’s care economy overall.