Clean homes, fair work
Read about Aleksandra Lewicki and Jenny Chanfreau’s research into domestic cleaning and the potential for better regulation and fairer taxation.
Valuing domestic work
Cleaning, like other work around the home, is often undervalued and invisible. Aleksandra Lewicki and Jenny Chanfreau teamed up with Antoinette Daniel, social justice activist and founder-owner of ethical cleaning agency Just Helpers, to undertake pilot research into the UK domestic cleaning sector in this knowledge exchange project supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF).
Registered businesses offer better working conditions and provide various advantages over irregular or informal arrangements (e.g. cash-in-hand). Cleaning operators express a preference for regulation and only go ‘undercover’ or accept cash-in-hand if they see no other option. Yet, various barriers push domestic workers into informality.
The project pointed to:
- significant data gaps that undermine campaigning for fairer working conditions
- stereotypes that undermine minimum standards of decent employment
- under-regulation and challenges arising from VAT thresholds.
Antoinette Daniel, Just Helpers owner, explained: “Running a business in this sector day to day, the VAT threshold is the thing that comes up more than anything else when I talk to other owners. We're selling labour, not products, but we're taxed as though we're selling goods, and the moment you cross that £90,000 threshold you're suddenly around 20% more expensive than someone just under it, or someone working cash-in-hand. It's not a gradual squeeze; it really is a cliff edge.”
The knowledge exchange was based on two strands of pilot research. The first involved qualitative interviews with cleaning business owners to map their operating challenges and working conditions led by Dr Aleksandra Lewicki. The second strand of the project charted the challenges in quantifying the size and shape of the domestic cleaning sector via existing sources of data; this was led by Dr Jenny Chanfreau. The research was conducted by Associate Researcher Joey Timmins.
Read more about the project and its policy recommendations in the policy briefing.
In the accompanying video, produced by Joey Timmins at Purposeful Pictures, knowledge exchange project partners Aleksandra Lewicki, Jenny Chanfreau and Antoinette Daniel, discuss their key findings, drawing attention to the issues that affect the sector and highlighting policy interventions that could make a real difference to businesses and campaign efforts to improve working conditions for domestic cleaning operatives.
Watch the video now on YouTube
The research team
Dr Aleksandra Lewicki
Dr Aleksandra Lewicki is a Reader in Sociology, Deputy Head of the Sociology and Criminology Department and (Co-)Director of the Sussex European Institute. Her research focuses on the regulation of movement across borders, political mobilisation and the political economy of race-making. Her work has critically examined how precarious work, welfare provision and the politics of migration rely on and (re)produce racial hierarchies in Britain and Germany.
Email: A.Lewicki@sussex.ac.uk
Read more about Dr Aleksandra
Dr Jenny Chanfreau
Dr Jenny Chanfreau is an Assistant Professor in Sociology. Her research focus is on gender inequalities in social reproduction and how these are shaped by policies. She has a methodological interest in critical and feminist approaches to quantitative research and is a co-organiser of the FemQuant collective.
Email: Jenny.Chanfreau@sussex.ac.uk
Read more about Dr Jenny
