Paid Domestic Work, globalization, and informality.

Abstract
This paper examines the local demand for, and the level of informality of, domestic help in the Sacramento metropolitan area of California. It departs from the prevalent analytical approach that looks at domestic work from the supply side (i.e., the workers’ perspective), and instead examines it from the demand side (i.e., the employers’ perspective). Using a quantitative analytical strategy, it looks at the employer– employee relationship as embedded in specific social and economic conditions, including the sociodemographic characteristics of the household and its head, and structured by the different types of the housework workers are hired to perform.