Digital platforms for (female) domestic workers in Chile

Precarization, invisibilization, and mercantilization

Bibliographic Data

ID12309796
AuthorsNatalie Rodríguez‐Covarrubias (0000-0002-3209-8482, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Universidad Complutense de Madrid Madrid Spain, corresponding author), Francisca Álvarez Figueroa (0000-0002-1230-1906, Work and Equalities Institute Alliance Manchester Business School The University of Manchester Manchester UK, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume32
Issue2
Pages868-886
Publication date2024-08-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGender Work and Organization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0968-6673 • E-ISSN: 1468-0432
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/gwao.13183
OpenAlexW4402042401
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited48

Digital platforms for Domestic Workers (DW) are widespread, entailing work management and employment challenges. In Chile, DW has inherited colonial and class dynamics that are still present. Besides, this role has shown a significant occupation rate where one out of 10 women is DW; from this, one of every three are migrants. This study aims to analyze digital platforms for DW in Chile critically. For this, following Fairclough's model (1989), we develop a Critical Discourse Analysis through the micro (textual), meso (production), and macro (Sociocultural) levels in three Chilean digital platforms for DW. The results expose how the platforms are organized and how the DW as a subject is conceived. In this sense, personal characteristics, such as age, gender, nationality, and lifestyle, are marketized as part of a product where workers are easily replaceable, unveiling the commodification of DW. Hence, there is a dominance and commodification over the worker's time, private life, and corporality, a dynamic that we call chronoproperty . We discuss that DW's labor is presented as a good rather than a service, reflecting on the managerial system built in Chilean society through discourses and practices. We reflect on the international implications of our findings amidst the rise of digital platforms for DW and the need to advance toward an intersectional understanding of the working logic, considering that domestic work is mostly performed by migrant women crossed by class and race dynamics

Commodification · Dominance (genetics · Economics · Economy · Product (mathematics · Reproduction · Sociology · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Employment and Welfare Studies · Gender Studies · Labor Movements and Unions

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Open DOIOpen Access