Gender, Migration and Domestic Work: Masculinities, Male Labour and Fathering in the UK and USA (Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship)

Based on studies conducted in the UK and USA, this book investigates the experiences of suppliers and consumers of masculinized domestic services, exploring issues such as increasing inequality, migration, the rise of commoditized domestic services, contemporary masculinities and the gendering of paid work. As the rich have got richer and households have become busier, demand for commoditized household services has increased. While much is known about maids and nannies, this book is distinctive in focusing on masculinized domestic services. Through two case-studies - Polish handymen in the UK and the households that employ them and Mexican jardineros in the USA - the book demonstrates how, by outsourcing, householders can mitigate the 'father time-bind' arising from tensions between new expectations for involved fathering, economic expectations regarding working hours, and a highly gendered and neo-liberal social policy regime, and shows how the consequences of this reaches beyond the households into the lives of the migrant men who work for them. Through the focus on male domestic work, the book identifies distinctly gendered understandings of domestic work and care, and shows how these influence the differential economic value of and emotional attachment to different forms of domestic work, and the gendered identities of those supplying and buying these services. In doing so, the book reveals much about the dynamic and varied understandings of masculinity Front Matter....Pages i-viii Gender, Migration and Domestic Work: An Introduction....Pages 1-19 Globalization, Migration and Domestic Work: Gendering the Debate....Pages 20-34 Researching Men in the Relationship between Gender, Migration and Domestic Work....Pages 35-64 Migrants and Male Domestic Work in the UK: The Rise of the ‘Polish Handyman’....Pages 65-93 Connecting Men in the International Division of Domestic Work: The New ‘Father Time-Bind’, Global Divisions between Men and Gender Inequalities....Pages 94-121 Mexican Gardeners in the USA....Pages 122-148 Gender Identity and Work: Migrant Domestic Work and Masculinity....Pages 149-177 Back Matter....Pages 178-205