Executive Summary

The key question of this study is to ask: what is the quality of employment of paid domestic work in urban India? We measured quality by looking at income security (wages, bonus, increments); employment and work security (terms of termination, terms of assistance in illness or injury); and social security (terms of paid leave, medical insurance, and maternity entitlements). We additionally assessed channels of recruitment of paid domestic workers. We did so for 3,067 households in two large metropolitan Indian cities– Bengaluru and Chennai – with variations across socio-economic status, caste, religion, neighbourhood type and across households with and without women working for wages.