Does Outsourcing of Domestic Work Really Promote Women‘s Employment?

One of the most significant societal changes of the past decades is the rise in female labor force participation. However, still the labor force participation of women lags far behind that of men, when the degree of employment (intensive margin) is considered. In most countries the rise of female labor force participation was to a great deal due to an increase in marginal and part-time work, especially in countries characterized by a liberal or conservative welfare state (supporting a male earner/female part-time carer model). In Germany for example, part-time employment among women rose from 30,2 % in 2001 to 47,9 % in 2013 (LIT) (WSI Report 22, 2015). Thus, time restrictions due to family responsibilities seem to still present one of the main obstacles for women’s employment. Empirical literature on labor division within households confirms that, although gender ideologies have become much more egalitarian, women still spend much more time and effort with domestic cores. Tasks performed by women still incur much more restrictions to time flexibility, i.e. core engagement during the day which cannot be delayed.

Against this background the question arises, to what extent the outsourcing of domestic labor, for example by hiring a household help, might present a viable solution for women to reconcile family responsibilities with employment. However, still the determinants of outsourcing domestic labor and its effects on female employment are not very well understood. While some studies for the Netherlands, Australia and UK have been presented, in particular the theoretical potential of the topic for understanding how gender ideology and normative conceptions of domestic labor shape the relationship between households and the economic sphere has not been fully exploited. Departing from economic models of labor decisions within couples, we add a specific sociological perspective on how the morality of domestic work affects female labor market decisions. Contrary to economic reasoning, our main hypothesis states that outsourcing domestic work does not necessarily affect women’s employment positively. Instead we argue that the amorality of paying for what is considered to be the “labor of love” needs to be compensated in the social construction of family life.

One reason for the dearth of studies investigating these relationships might be due to the lack of empirical data to adequately address these research questions. While in many data sets information on domestic help is lacking, in other datasets other important information is not available. In particular the normative dimension and attitudes towards outsourcing is not measured. Using a unique representative dataset collected for evaluation of a program of the German Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youths (N= 1312)  this article seeks to provide theoretical and empirical evidence on the effects of hiring a household help for female labor market decisions in Germany. In particular the dataset contains several items that were specifically included into the survey for addressing outsourcing issues. Moreover, we exploit the quasi-experimental design of the study and qualitative data collected during the program participation to access the normative components of household labor.