An Empirical Study on the Economic Conditions, Legal Safeguards and Welfare Provisions for Female Domestic Workers in Urban Area of Bengaluru, India

Abstract

Domestic women workers are those who engage in cleaning the house, cooking, washing, and taking care of children, elderly, or sick members of a family, they work on a full-time, part-time, or hourly basis, and sometimes on a contract basis in private households (ILO-2020). In the informal workforce, most women are employed as domestic workers. Low wages, long working hours, and low social status characterize domestic women workers. It is estimated that the third-largest category of informal workers consists of domestic workers, followed by agriculture and construction workers; most of them work in urban areas.  Domestic work is the primary source of income for people who are semi-literate or illiterate in India. According to various reports, there is an increased demand for domestic help as the country’s per capita income increases. Despite the need for domestic help, they continue to be deprived of protection and are left vulnerable to various kinds of abuse, like human trafficking, bonded labour, etc. The paper aims to examine the present legal framework protections and a few landmark case laws regarding their rights, and to analyze the impact of social security schemes introduced by the government on the informal sector on domestic workers in Bengaluru urban. The study is designed with empirical analysis, and collected 100 respondents from different parts of Bengaluru urban through random sampling from Bengaluru Urban, The secondary data is collected from journals, ILO reports, NSS reports, and articles. The study reveals a huge demand and ample opportunities for domestic workers because Bengaluru is its hub, people are busy with their office work schedule, and hardly get time to do the household chores. The regression method is used to analyze the hypothesis that the model indicates age, education, and Experience influence the awareness of social security schemes provided by the Government for women informal workers. The percentage method is also used to analyze the data.  The study also portrays that most domestic women workers belong to the middle age group, have long working hours, and are happy with the social security measures introduced by the government. Many of the domestic women workers are migrant workers.