Performing Department
Human Ecology
Non Technical Summary
This project supports the mission of the Agricultural Experiment Station by addressing the Hatch Act area(s) of: rural and community development.Demand for paid domestic help is on the rise and becoming central for the lives of a growing proportion of middle-class households in urban, as well as rural areas of California, as well as the nation. At the same time, domestic work has become a very significant alternative for dozens of thousands of immigrant women toiling in agriculture, who are moving to urban areas to work in this rapidly expanding labor market. While immigrant women see domestic work, despite its informality and marginalization, as a viable and even desirable alternative to the drudgery of agricultural work. Women workers' displacement from rural agriculture to urban domestic work, seems to contribute to the shrinking labor pool affecting the agricultural sector. This project will shed light on the dynamics and factors shaping this process, highlighting the importance it has not only for agriculture, but also for the families of the workers involved.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
60%
Applied
35%
Developmental
5%
Goals / Objectives
1. To explore the dynamics and determinants of immigrant Latina workers' displacement from rural agricultural work to urban paid domestic work.2. To compare the labor conditions, general physical and emotional health, and socioeconomic wellbeing of domestic workers who transferred from agricultural work with those who have not worked in agriculture.
Project Methods
I will use a mixed-data-collection method strategy that combines qualitative and quantitative methods from a longitudinal perspective.1. To explore changes over time, I will re-interview as many informants as possible of the 50 domestic workers, whom I interviewed in the Sacramento metropolitan area a decade ago. The vast majority of these workers are Latin American immigrant women. I will re-interview them to learn about possible changes and continuities in their work status, living conditions, and general wellbeing. Information gathered from this exercise will be used as a reference point to compare with results from interviews conducted with a new group of 50 domestic workers as part of the project's extension.2. To contextualize the meaning of the qualitative data collected, I will also analyze official data from the US Census Bureau (decennial censuses and ACS). For this analysis, I will pay particular attention to Latin American immigrant women's labor market participation in agriculture and domestic work in the region between 1980 and 2017. This approach will allow me to detect trends and changes in domestic work and agricultural labor markets over time.To examine domestic workers' wellbeing, I will combine the analysis of results from qualitative research (i.e., face-to-face, in-depth interviews with immigrant domestic workers) and analysis of official aggregate data on Latin American immigrant female, domestic workers regarding access to health insurance, rates of morbidity, work-related accidents, and other public-health related issues seeking to determine whether any pattern exists.