First-ever All India Survey on Domestic workers

Context

Recently, the Union Minister for Labour and Employment flagged off the first ever All India Survey on Domestic Workers (DW).

Key-highlights

• The survey is being carried out by the Labour Bureau.
• It is aimed at estimating the number of domestic workers at the national and State levels, those engaged in informal employment, and migrant and non-migrant workers; the proportion of domestic workers who stay at their employers’ homes and those who do not; the wages of such workers; and other socio-economic factors.
• The survey would also include details of the number of households with “live-in and live-out” domestic workers and the average number of workers engaged by various kinds of households.
• The survey would cover 37 States and Union Territories, covering 1.5 lakh households in 742 districts.
• The survey for domestic workers is among five national jobs surveys that will be conducted periodically and provide crucial data for an upcoming national employment policy.
  • The other four surveys are the All-India Survey of Migrant Workers, All-India Survey of Employment Generated by Professionals and All-India Survey of Employment Generated in the Transport Sector, All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES).

Domestic Worker

• Any person engaged by a household shall be classified as a domestic worker if the frequency of visits by the worker to the household is at least four days during the last 30 days and the goods and/or services produced by the worker are consumed by the members of the household against payment either through cash or kind.

Status of Domestic Workers

• According to the latest data on the e-Shram portal, around 8.8% of the registered 8.56 crore informal sector workers fall in the category of domestic workers. 
  • At the current rate of registration in the e-shram portal, there would be 3-3.5 crore domestic workers in the country.
• India has around 38 crore workers in the informal sector.
• Domestic workers are the third-largest category of workers after agriculture and construction.
• India is a signatory of the International Labour Organisation Convention C-189 (Domestic Workers Convention, 2011).