“Sister-Madam and Sister-Maid” : an exploration of the experiences of black women employers and employees in the domestic work sector in rural South Africa

Abstract: Domestic work remains the main source of employment, for marginalised Black women in South Africa. Historically, the domestic work sector involved Whites hiring Blacks as domestic workers. However, the demise of the apartheid system has led to a situation where some Black people also hire domestic workers. The hiring of family members and close friends – as domestic workers – by Black people is an emerging phenomenon in post-apartheid South Africa. However, the employment of kin as domestic workers in Black families is under-researched. Hence, this study focused on family domestic work in rural Limpopo – employing a qualitative and feminist approach to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences of Black women performing familial domestic work. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with Black women hiring relatives or family members to work as their domestic workers. The study shows that familial domestic work is motivated by an expectation of reciprocal care among family members. People hire their relatives to receive assistance with domestic duties while the hired kin receive a financial compensation that helps them to provide for their families. Nevertheless, familial domestic work is characterised by challenges linked to the complex status of simultaneously being a relative and an employer/employee. This is because of the intersection of family ties and employer-employee relationships. Consequently, work aspects such as the employment process, contracts, and wages are negotiated in a familial context. Given that sisteremployers and sister-employees struggle to balance family and workplace relations, familial domestic work is characterised by challenges. Silence is employed as a mechanism to deal with these predicaments in a manner that helps to protect the family relation. On the one hand, familial domestic work is broadly humanising the domestic work sector through the harnessing of humane and family principles. On the other hand, familial domestic work symbolises the impact of capitalism on interpersonal relations in Black families, as the reciprocal caring practice is assigned a monetary value.M.A. (Industrial Sociology