Intersectionality Applied to Transformations in Care and Domestic Work: A Global and Comparative Perspective

The paper looks at how the changes in the social position of paid care and domestic workers are affected by intersecting social inequalities, in terms of gender, class/caste, race/ethnicity, age, etc. To this aim, it presents the first results of the project “DomEQUAL: A global approach to paid domestic work and social inequalities” (2016-2020), a mixed-method study that compares the recent transformations of paid care and domestic work between nine countries in the Global North (Germany, Italy, Spain) and Global South (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Philippines and Taiwan). The evolution in the social position of paid care and domestic workers and the intersectional composition of this workforce are here approached by considering different socio-cultural contexts, legislative and political interventions, changes in provision and regulation of care and welfare, as well as the broader transformations in the structure of social inequalities at the local and global level. In the end, the paper will highlight major methodological and conceptual challenges in practicing intersectionality in comparative sociological research, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods.