Domestic Service: Past and Present in Southern and Northern Europe

This article analyses the relationship between modernisation and changes in domestic service in the 20th century, drawing upon the author’s own research and some results of the other papers presented to the Forum. A century ago, several intellectuals thought that progress would imply the decline of domestic service. Indeed, in the following years this was generally the case. Yet in many countries the 1930s were characterized by a reversal of the trend that in some cases coincided with a further feminisation of domestic staff. To explain the inter-war transformation of domestic service, the paper mainly focuses on Italy, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Whilst Italian, Spanish and German women had to face regimes which emphasised their domestic role, Swedish women debated how to combine work and family. In the following decades, the development of the welfare state in Northern Europe offered a solution to this problem and meant a big reduction in the number of domestics. Their number declined in Spain and Italy, too, but to a lesser extent, probably because in these countries care was mainly provided by the family. However, ageing of the population, increasing female employment and insufficient public services are currently leading to a widening demand for private domestic services both in Northern and Southern Europe, while the increasing imbalance between rich and poor (or impoverished) countries means there is plenty of cheap migrant labour on offer that satisfies this demand and, possibly, also stimulates it. We are therefore experiencing a “resurgence” of paid domestic work. This resurgence is also due to state policy aimed at fighting unemployment and the informal economy through the expansion of so-called ‘proximity services’.