Does live-in domestic help reduce unpaid household labor? The paradox of intensive parenting and domestic outsourcing

This two-stage mixed-method study pulls the literature of domestic outsourcing and intensive parenting together to investigate the role of employing live-in domestic helpers in the time-use patterns of household labor among working parents in Hong Kong. In the first stage, regression models are used to analyze data from a representative household survey of working parents ( N = 791). Regression results show that working parents who hire live-in domestic help spent less time in housework. Yet, the reduction in housework time was partially offset by the managing tasks brought about by the use of live-in help. Working parents with live-in helpers also spent significantly more time on childcare than did working parents without such help. To interpret the regression results, the study draws on qualitative data from in-depth interviews ( N = 20) to unpack the meaning of hiring help and its relationship with the notion and practices of parenting. The findings highlight that the use of live-in domestic help is a specialization strategy to strive for perfection in parenting for parents who juggle work, childcare and household chores. By outsourcing household chores and more routinized childcare tasks to the helpers, working parents, especially mothers, can focus on emotional bonding and tasks conducive to the development of their children.

Domestic Outsourcing and Workers’ Bargaining Power in a Simple Production System

Outsourcing is normally conceived as the result of a cost-minimizing choice of a new technique that also implies a redefinition of the boundaries between firms and sectors. In this paper, we will argue instead that many outsourcing activities do not necessarily imply technical change and that the phenomenon can be explained by placing it in connection with the radical modification of the way in which wages are set for workers in a wide range of poorly regulated firms and industries. More than as an aspect of the spread of technical progress, outsourcing will be analyzed as an important mechanism through which workers are divided and their bargaining power is weakened, thus changing the outcome of the distributive conflict between profit and wages.

Within and between firm trends in job polarization: the roles of globalization and technology

We analyze occupational polarization within and across firms using a census of matched employer–employee panel data from Finland in the period of 2000–2014. As in most industrialized countries, the Finnish occupational distribution has polarized over the last decades. Using decomposition analysis, we find that jobs involving low-level service tasks increase mostly through the entry dynamics, while the high-level abstract task share increases largely within continuing firms. Worker-level occupational mobility points to some skill upgrading within continuing firms, while labor force entry and retirement contribute the polarizing trend. Instrumental variables (IVs) regressions confirm that this occupational restructuring is affected by the globalization of economic activity, including trade in goods and services, offshoring and outsourcing. For example, firms that outsource tasks abroad are more prone to lay off production workers, while domestic outsourcing leads to a reduction of both cognitive and service employees.

Examination of factors leading expansion of outsourcing and its arrangements in service sec-tor

Purpose – the purpose of this article is to identify factors that influence the spread of outsourcing practice in service sec-tors, classified by WTO and investigate links between factors which lead service sector firms to adopt outsourcing and outsourcing relationship type. Research methodology – the authors conducted a comprehensive review of the literature in the service sector and out-sourcing practices researches to achieve a thorough understanding of the issues involved and identifying the problematic aspects and crucial factors groups affecting the outsourcing using in the service sector. The structured interview with general managers in each service sector group was held in order to explore the factors determining the outsourcing in separate service sector companies and revealed what relationship are used to maintain outsourcing arrangements. Collect-ed data were analysed using the statistical method. Findings – the range of factors that contribute to the expansion of outsourcing in the service sector is distinctive and sig-nificantly narrower than those identified in the scientific literature. The significance of factors that lead service sector firms to adopt outsourcing varies according to what kind of activities – core or non-core are outsourced. Outsourcing re-lationships are based on short- and long-term contracts preferred domestic outsourcing. Research limitations – although the main factors affecting the expansion of outsourcing in the service sector were re-vealed, the compatibility of expert opinions was weak. Therefore, more in-depth research could be carried out in each of the service sector groups and its sub-domains. Practical implications – the practical implication should explain how the results of the research could be used in practice. Originality/Value – while most studies of factors motivating outsourcing where based on manufacturing sector or sepa-rate service sector companies’ groups (hotels, hospitals, etc.), this is empirical study focusing at all service sector groups distinguished by WTO.

Health and Housework in Later Life: A Longitudinal Study of Retired Couples

Objectives To examine how changes in wives’ and husbands’ health influenced housework time and domestic outsourcing in retired couples. Method We estimated fixed-effects models to test hypotheses about the gendered influence of health declines on absolute and relative measures of time spent on routine and nonroutine housework as well as the probability of outsourcing housework. The data were obtained from 23 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, comprising N = 25,119 annual observations of N = 3,889 retired couples aged 60–85 years. Results Wives’ and husbands’ housework time declined with health status, but these effects were large only for serious health problems. We found evidence for within-couple compensation of spouses’ health declines, a mechanism that was limited to indispensable tasks of routine housework. The probability of getting paid help from outside the household increased with declining health, and this increase was more strongly tied to wives’ health declines than to husbands’ health declines. Discussion The results demonstrate the relevance of health status for the performance of housework in retired couples. The evidence attests to the resilience of couples during later-life stages in which health issues may severely inhibit domestic productivity.

Macro-environment’s effects on onshore outsourcing: the transition costs approach

Purpose Through the literature, the effect of macro-environment on onshore outsourcing decisions appears rather unexplored, despite empirical evidence. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap through an extension of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) (the main theory of domestic outsourcing). Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a framework based on a literature review. It applies this body of knowledge on a new question and provides detailed illustrations (with primary and secondary data). Findings This paper builds a theoretical framework, based on the concept of transition costs. This concept, created as a way to make the economizing approach more dynamic, highlights the influences of the macro-environment. This paper presents a clarification of transition costs. It formulates a theoretical proposition: the environment has an effect on outsourcing through the transition costs. Research limitations/implications This framework deserves to be tested through an empirical study. Practical implications This framework enables domestic providers to take the environment and transition costs into account for the design and timing of outsourced service. Social implications This framework enables to consider the importance of social conflicts and political measures on the domestic outsourcing decisions. Originality/value First, this paper addresses an unexplored question (the effect of macro-environment on onshore outsourcing decisions). Second, it refines an undertheorized TCE concept: the transition costs. Third, it proposes a new direction in the current debate of the evanishing explanatory power of the TCE on outsourcing (by extending this theory).

Income Inequality and Household Labor

Income inequality has increased dramatically in the United States since the mid 1970s. This remarkable change in the distribution of household income has spurred a great deal of research on the social and economic consequences of exposure to high inequality. However, the empirical record on the effects of income inequality is mixed. In this paper, we suggest that previous research has generally overlooked a simple but important pathway through which inequality might manifest in daily life: inequality shapes the ability of women to outsource domestic labor by hiring others to perform it. One important venue where such dynamics might then manifest is in time spent on housework and in particular in the time divide in housework between women of high and low socio-economic status. We combine micro-data from the 2003-2013 American Time Use Survey with area-level data on income inequality to show the class divide in housework time between women with a college degree and from high earning households and women of lower socio-economic status is wider in more unequal places. We further assess whether this gap can be explained by domestic outsourcing by combining micro-data from the 2003-2013 Consumer Expenditure Survey with area-level inequality and show that the gap in spending for household services between households of high and low socio-economic status also increases in contexts of higher inequality.