Background/Objectives: Domestic Work has emerged as a major source of wage employment for women. According to the ILO (International Labour Organisation) there are 67 million domestic workers across the globe with 80% constituting women. Apart from this one in every 25 women workers worldwide is a domestic worker. The objective of the study is to evaluate the minimum wages of workers and comparatively find its position with respect to the minimum wages provided to other unorganized sector workers under scheduled employments by the centre and the state governments. The aims of the work include: To access the composition of workers in terms of their domicile; To analyse the living standards of women domestic workers on the basis of their access to basic minimum needs and To inquire about the environment at workplace.
Methods/Findings: Simultaneously in India, according to the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 68th round of Employment and Unemployment Survey estimates, there are 3.9 million people employed as domestic workers by private households, of which 2.6 million are women. These statistics both at the international and national level reflect the feminization of domestic work. An absence of concrete legal framework and their subsequent fallout from protective Labour Laws renders them more vulnerable to exploitation. There is no record keeping of them at the Centre neither do they find a place within the definition of unorganized workers under the Uttarakhand State Labour records.
Application: This creates a natural deficit of comprehensive data on these workers which results in them becoming completely invisible in the labour market. In the same light, the paper aims to analyze the working and living conditions of women domestic workers with special emphasis on their minimum wages in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand.