A maid by any other name- Leslie Sanzinger Salzinger studies ...
A maid by any other name- Leslie Sanzinger
Salzinger studies immigrant women who do domestic work in the United States Argues that diversity among these workers’ experiences can be explained by the loss of manufacturing jobs and the increasing need for service works Domestic service jobs needed not only by wealthy people but also by elderly and working parents Many women been in United Sates for almost a decade but were still doing domestic work Domestic work is a paradigmatic case of immigrant “dirty” work- of work that is irredeemably demeaning Salzinger argues that the human capital resources they brought-or failed to bring- with them account for little of their work experience in this country; it is within the context of the constraints and opportunities they encountered here that we can understand their occupational decisions, their attitudes toward their work, and ultimately their divergent abilities to transform the work itself Why Domestic Work? Saskia Sassen-Koob focuses directly on the structural context entered by contemporary immigrants to American cities During the last 20 years, immigrants have entered the United States’ “declining” cities in ever- increasing numbers, and contrary to all predictions, they continue to find enough work to encourage others to follow them While these cities are losing their place as manufacturing centres, they are simultaneously undergoing a rebirth as “global cities”, such as banking and insurance for an international corporate market A Bifurcated Market Sassen-Koob points to the contemporary emergence of a two-tiered service economy composed of professionals and those who serve them, both at work and at home Increasing demand for domestic services from single, elite professionals but there is an increasing demand for such services from the rising number of elderly people living alone on fixed incomes, from two-earner working-class families, and from single mothers who need cheap child care to work Evelyn Nakano Glenn notes discrepancies in pay among workers- she attributes this to personalistic aspects of the negotiating process between domestic workers and their employers Over the last 30 years, women have entered the paid labour force in increasing numbers; response to the economic shifts mentioned by Sassen Koob (decline of manufacturing jobs[ usually men’s jobs] paying a family wage and increasing availability of feminized service jobs) and cultural shifts that have made paid work an acceptable choice for women in the absence of financial need o Led to a commodification of what was once unpaid household labour, visible in the boom in restaurants and cleaning agencies and the increasing demand for child care during the last 10 years Nature of the employer rather than of the work determines the wages
Salzinger studies immigrant women who do domestic work in the United States Argues that diversity among these workers’ experiences can be explained by the loss of manufacturing jobs and the increasing need for service works Domestic service jobs needed not only by wealthy people but also by elderly and working parents Many women been in United Sates for almost a decade but were still doing domestic work Domestic work is a paradigmatic case of immigrant “dirty” work- of work that is irredeemably demeaning Salzinger argues that the human capital resources they brought-or failed to bring- with them account for little of their work experience in this country; it is within the context of the constraints and opportunities they encountered here that we can understand their occupational decisions, their attitudes toward their work, and ultimately their divergent abilities to transform the work itself Why Domestic Work? Saskia Sassen-Koob focuses directly on the structural context entered by contemporary immigrants to American cities During the last 20 years, immigrants have entered the United States’ “declining” cities in ever- increasing numbers, and contrary to all predictions, they continue to find enough work to encourage others to follow them While these cities are losing their place as manufacturing centres, they are simultaneously undergoing a rebirth as “global cities”, such as banking and insurance for an international corporate market A Bifurcated Market Sassen-Koob points to the contemporary emergence of a two-tiered service economy composed of professionals and those who serve them, both at work and at home Increasing demand for domestic services from single, elite professionals but there is an increasing demand for such services from the rising number of elderly people living alone on fixed incomes, from two-earner working-class families, and from single mothers who need cheap child care to work Evelyn Nakano Glenn notes discrepancies in pay among workers- she attributes this to personalistic aspects of the negotiating process between domestic workers and their employers Over the last 30 years, women have entered the paid labour force in increasing numbers; response to the economic shifts mentioned by Sassen Koob (decline of manufacturing jobs[ usually men’s jobs] paying a family wage and increasing availability of feminized service jobs) and cultural shifts that have made paid work an acceptable choice for women in the absence of financial need o Led to a commodification of what was once unpaid household labour, visible in the boom in restaurants and cleaning agencies and the increasing demand for child care during the last 10 years Nature of the employer rather than of the work determines the wages
