The Outsourcing of House Cleaning and Low Skill Immigrant Workers

This paper explains why the outsourcing of domestic household tasks is more prevalent in some OECD countries than in others by examining the effects of country-level labor market characteristics. This paper uses micro-level data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), “Family and Gender Roles III” (2002 module) to carry out a two-level analysis on a sample of 22 countries. The paper examines the effects of both individual- and national level factors that might affect a couple’s decision to outsource house cleaning to someone outside of the family. The paper finds that, in addition to individual level variables such as education and household income, the percentage of low skill immigrants in the country affects the likelihood of outsourcing house cleaning.