According to a 2014 report by PHI, of the 2 million nurses, personal care aides, home health aides, and nursing assistants who provide in-home care, 90% ARE WOMEN.
Throughout history, women have acted as the primary caregivers for children, family members, and usually the household. For centuries, humans have left this obligation to women, putting wellbeing in the hands of women.
There are different factors that have contributed to this. The most obvious being that women are the ones who are able to breastfeed and therefore care the most for children. This creates the societal expectation of the female nurturer.
The first members of the domestic workforce were enslaved or indentured African American women. After the Emancipation Proclamation, African American women took on the responsibilities of domestic work, since they were often denied other jobs/alienated from mainstream society.
By 1870, 52% of the female workforce was in “domestic and personal service”
Nannies, in the first decades of the 20th century, were the most underpaid and undervalued workforce in the US. In the 1930s, they were excluded from social security benefits and fair wages, along with the right to form a workers’ union.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, but only applied to employers with 15+ employees, therefore excluding most individual household nannies, specifically African American women.
The domestic workforce has one of the highest concentrations of undocumented workers, putting many in difficult positions–it is much harder for nannies who are undocumented to request better pay, better hours, or better treatment, since they are often threatened with deportation.
There have been many past cases of women trafficked to this country in order to perform cheap labor, or women who have been abused by their employers.
In 2007, two Indonesian women were brought to the US as housekeepers, working for a wealthy couple in Long Island, NY virtually as slaves. They received no wages for their work, only $100 a month, sent to their families abroad.
Although nannies were originally intended for the rich, they are now being exploited (especially those who are immigrants) by middle-class families as well.
For many arriving female immigrants to the US, they have little options to choose from for their professions. Historically and currently, being a nanny is one of the most accessible jobs for this demographic of women in the workforce.
Because women are seen as “biologically” more nurturing, they have been repeatedly pushed into this role of a domestic caretaker. This means that they are taught to constantly serve everyone, not just their children. As a result, women are obedient servants while men are dominant figures being served. The power imbalance is what leads to gender based violence, since men (most commonly harmdoers) are the ones to exert power and control over employed women (most commonly survivors). Because this area of work is so female dominated, and many nannies find themselves in situations with a lack of options, they are extremely vulnerable to gender-based violence, perpetrated by employers.