Domestic-Sector Work in the UK: Locating Men in the Configuration of Gendered Care and Migration Regimes

Research on the processes underpinning the contemporary growth in the commoditisation of domestic labour focuses on feminised areas of work, such as cleaning and care. Yet research examining trends in domestic outsourcing highlights how menʹs, as well as womenʹs, household work is subject to increased commoditisation. Through a qualitative enquiry of households which outsource stereotypically male domestic chores - essentially, household and garden repair and maintenance - and men who do such work for pay, we seek to understand the processes underpinning its outsourcing. In doing so, we adopt a framework which treats the paid domestic-work sector as a critical nexus at which gendered care and migration regimes intersect. The focus on male domestic chores, however, requires that we broaden that framework in ways which can more fully illuminate menʹs positions within it.