This report assesses the working conditions of domestic workers ten years after the adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189). It highlights the progress made over a decade, as well as the remaining legal and implementation gaps, and provides guidance on policies that can pave the way...

This policy brief outlines the challenges in extending social protection to domestic workers, which were aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. These include inter alia legal exclusion in relation to working conditions and arrangements (part time work, multiple employers, informality, etc).  Even where domestic workers might be covered in law,...

The briefing note explains the ILO strategy to expand social security coverage to migrant domestic workers, including the ILO standards relevant to migrant domestic workers. Despite the long list of ILO social security instruments adopted, the note goes on by describing the main challenges of standards setting for migrant...

This guide focuses on the challenges that countries face in implementing labour legislation covering domestic work. It is targeted in particular to government agencies, including labour inspectorates and other institutions that enforce labour regulations, as well as social partners and, more generally, domestic workers and their employers. The guide...

The policy brief outlines the obstacles for the formation of trade unions, strikes and collective bargaining in the sector of domestic work. It highlights that voice and representation for domestic workers is nevertheless important and advocates for new paradigms and new thinking to organize workers of and set collective...

The Unemployment Insurance Amendment Act granted domestic workers a number of social protection benefits by including domestic workers in the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The Fund provides (a) full or partial unemployment benefits in case of dismissal, retrenchment, illness, or death of the employer; and (b) maternity benefits for pregnant...

The Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and its accompanying Domestic Workers Recommendation, 2011 (No. 201) address closing the gaps in social protection coverage. It calls on Members to ‘… take appropriate measures, in accordance with national laws and regulations and with due regard for the specific characteristics of...

The Domestic Workers Recommendation, 2011 (No. 201) accompanies the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and urges ILO member States to take measures to facilitate the payment of social security contributions. It also highlights the potential of bilateral and multilateral agreements to guarantee equal treatment of migrant domestic workers...

Domestic work is an important source of employment, representing 4.5 per cent of employees worldwide. Yet domestic workers are amongst one of the most vulnerable and unprotected categories of workers. They consistently lack decent working conditions including social protection and are disproportionately exposed to violence and harassment. The vulnerabilities...

The ILO policy resource package “Extending social security to workers in the informal economy: Lessons from international experience” serves as a reference for policy makers, workers’ and employers’ organizations and other stakeholders engaged in the development of social protection strategies, or the planning, design, implementation and monitoring of systems and...

WIEGO and the IDWF partnered to write this toolkit to support International Domestic Workers Foundation affiliates in their efforts to make the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) real for domestic workers. The Toolkit describes Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and its history and provides three steps on...

Many countries around the world are at the onset of a care crisis: with the ageing of the population, and continually increasing rates of female labour participation, families are increasingly turning to domestic workers to care for their homes, children, and ageing parents. While an increasing share of domestic...

This working paper: (i) provides an overview of the global situation of social security provisions for domestic workers in 163 countries; (ii) analyses trends, policies and gaps in terms of legal and effective social security coverage for domestic workers; (iii) describes and analyses the configuration of social security schemes...

This Recommendation recognizes the lack of protection of workers in the informal economy, and provides guidance for improving their protection and facilitating transitions to the formal economy. It also recognizes that decent work deficits – the denial of rights at work, the absence of sufficient opportunities for quality employment,...

As a human right that is intrinsic to all, the international community recognizes the need to design and implement social protection systems according to the principle of social inclusion, underlying the particular need to include persons in the informal economy (Recommendation No. 202, para 3e). Delivery systems should therefore...

A reference for the development of social security systems, Convention No. 102 is the flagship of the up-to-date social security Conventions since it is deemed to embody the internationally accepted definition of the very principle of social security.  Convention No. 102 is unique for both its conceptual formulation of social security,...

Recommendation No. 202 is the first international instrument to offer guidance to countries to close social security gaps and progressively achieve universal protection through the establishment and maintenance of comprehensive social security systems. To this aim, the Recommendation calls for (1) the implementation, as a priority, of social protection...

Non-discrimination and equality are core elements of the international human rights normative framework. Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that every human being is entitled to all rights and freedoms “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or...