Domestic Workers

Michel S. Laguerre
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Michel S. Laguerre: University of California

Chapter 4 in Urban Poverty in the Caribbean, 1990, pp 77-95 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract A phenomenon that is part of the urbanisation process in the Caribbean is the presence of domestic workers in middle and upper-class homes. In urban Martinique two historical facts have shaped contemporary domestic service: the colonial past, and the transformation of the island into a Department of France in 1946. The colonial period was the cultural mould in which workers and patrons created the symbolic content of their asymmetric relationships; with departmentalisation, social security laws defined a new social context and new modes of interaction.1 By shifting the Martinican economy from its plantation base to one heavily subsidised by Paris, departmentalisation occasioned the incorporation into the market economy of individuals who by their position in the household were not wage earners.2

Keywords: Social Security; Dominican Republic; Domestic Worker; Private Home; Urban Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1990
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-20890-6_4

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-20890-6_4

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