Policy resources
Domestic workers and Wages
18-year-old Pamela Maposah mopping the floor of the house of the family for whom she works as a housemaid in the morning.
© Marcel Crozet / ILO
Remuneration for domestic workers tends to be among the lowest in the labour market. Such low wages are driven by the lack of recognition of domestic work as real work, and exclusion from minimum wage protections. ILO Convention 189 , Art 11, states that domestic workers should be paid directly in cash, regularly, with strict limits on payments in kind in conditions not less favourable than those generally applicable to other workers. To help constituents implement the principles of these articles, the ILO has been engaged in research around remuneration, consolidated in the following resources.