The article focuses on the recent growth in the demand for paid domestic work,which is explained as a result of the rise of a new category of well-paidprofessional women, international migrations and other socio-economicchanges in most developed countries. Paid domestic labour is interpreted as a strategy to combine the conflicting demands of family and work for working women, available only to middle and upper class women with higher wage rate. It is suggested that delegation of domestic duties (cleaning, ironing, food preparation, child care etc.) to socially deprivileged women may lead - under inferior work conditions and within unequal relations between female employers and female domestic workers - to hierarchy of power between women of different socio-economic status.
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