77 ‘big sisters’ are better
domestic servants?!
comments on the booming
au pair business








Sabine Hess and Annette Puckhaber
abstract
The au pair program in general is still known as a form of cultural exchange program
and a good possibility for young women to spend a year abroad, although it has
undergone great changes during the last 10 years. This article argues that due to
different socio-economic and cultural processes in Western postindustrial societies as
well as in the eastern and southern parts of the world the au pair program is becoming
a form of domestic work with quite similar working and living conditions to that of
live-in migrant domestic workers. This article which is based on two empirical studies
on the globalizing au pair business in Eastern and Western Europe as well in the United
States looks into the motivations and expectations, the living conditions and
interactions between the au pairs and the employer families and contrasts these
findings with the discourse of the au pair agencies still advertising au pair as a form
of cultural exchange. In doing so the paper can show that it is the still dominant
image of au-pair as a cultural exchange program (disarticulating the work aspect)
that leaves the young au pair women even more vulnerable to exploitation: ‘big
sisters’ are the best domestic servants. This article draws attention to the racialized
economization of the private sphere and care work, the inherent traps and
exploitative features of this very specific work place.
keywords
gender; globalization; transnational migration; domestic work; au pair; new division
of reproductive labor
feminist review 77 2004
(65–78) 
c 2004 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/04 $15 www.feminist-review.com
65
introduction
‘Isn’t au pair only a nicer word for a housemaid?’ asks Tatjana, a 21-year-old
woman from a small town in eastern Slovakia, prior to heading for Germany as an
au pair in the early summer of 2000. Like many other Slovakian au pair applicants,
she had recently completed the last of her school exams and was unemployed.
Although her parents had just found new jobs after several years of unemployment,
they could not afford to send their eldest daughter to university. Tatjana,
therefore, had decided to go to Western Europe as an au pair. She had heard that
the local Protestant church was helping to arrange au pair placements and applied
for one immediately. Since the mid–1990s, commercial agencies had been cropping
up in every moderately sized city in Slovakia but Tatjana had heard that some au
pairs placed by the agencies had had negative experiences and felt that a church–
run agency would be more reliable. While she had faith in the church, she remained
somewhat uncertain about the kind of family she would be placed with. Stories of
long workdays and little free time were making the rounds among former au pairs,
who frequently described themselves as being little more than ‘housemaids.’ This
was not how they had envisioned life as an au pair. As Marianna, another
prospective au pair, said, ‘I don’t think that this is a job where I’m the servant of
the family but rather I’m supposed to be a member of the family. In a limited way,
of course, but still a member.’
After her arrival in Germany, however, Marianna soon realized that this was not the
case. She had been placed in a small southern town with a family of five and, as
all the children attended school, it was clear they did not need a nanny. Rather,
with both parents working long hours, they needed someone to do housework. From
8 o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, Marianna was expected to
clean, tidy up, do the laundry and the ironing, as well as cook. Whereas most au
pairs did a combination of childcare and housework, Marianna’s work was done
when the family was not at home, providing few opportunities for personal
interaction. The distance between them was increased by the spatial separation
between Marianna’s room and the rest of the house, which she only ventured into
during working hours and for supper. After three months, Marianna was forced to
conclude, ‘I’m nothing but an employee to this family. Cheap labour.’ Despite this,
Marianna soon began to appreciate her situation for her workday was relatively
short and her tasks clearly defined, whereas au pairs responsible for both childcare
and housework never knew when their workday would end. In most cases, their
daily routine consisted of getting up early to feed and dress the children before
bringing them to school or kindergarten and then watching them until their parents
returned. If their parents did not come home immediately after work, the au pair
was left minding the children. In comparison, Marianna’s position offered a number
of advantages but she still struggled with her isolation from the family. She felt
they looked upon her as a domestic servant, which she considered degrading.
feminist review 77 2004 domestic servants66
Such dissatisfaction after a few short months with a family is common among au
pairs. Gabi, an au pair responsible for the care of a one-year-old, had also had a
number of disputes with her host family over working hours and her integration into
the household. She argued, ‘They want an au pair who doesn’t eat or take a
shower, who is cheap and nothing else. But I’m also a human being and not
servant.’ Another au pair reported that this was all too common, saying, ‘Only one
out of four au pairs is lucky with her family.’ She had changed families on her own,
the agency refusing to support her because they trusted the host family more. But
her new host family exploited her as well. ‘I was used as cannon-fodder and
treated like a maid,’ she said resignedly. But due to limited prospects and an
unemployment rate of 20 per cent among young people in Slovakia, she did not
want to miss an opportunity to live abroad and predicted she would ‘soon come
back, without official papers if necessary.’
Tatjana, Marianna and Gabi are just three of the 10 Slovakian au pairs interviewed
by Sabine Hess in 2000. In this essay, the authors, Sabine Hess and Annette
Puckhaber, examine the experiences of Slovakian au pairs in Germany as well as
German au pairs in the United States and explore their response to being treated
as domestic servants by host families, showing that this practice should be viewed
as a form of migratory domestic service. They argue that due to the structure of
this institution and the absence of laws governing it contributing to unregulated
hours and poor working conditions, leaving au pairs open to exploitation by
agencies and host families. Furthermore, the discourses and practices of the
agencies and host families illustrate their attempts to turn this institution to their
advantage. Annette Puckhaber’s research began as a group research project on
domestic work at the International Women’s University Hanover in 2000.1
Her focus
has been the discourses found in advertising by international au pair agencies,
which aims to make this an attractive institution to both host families and young
women. These are compared with descriptions of the reality of au pair life from
interviews with German au pairs in the US. In contrast to Puckhaber’s research into
the au pair market in the West, Sabine Hess’ ethnographic research concentrates
on the au pair market between Eastern and Western European countries, which has
been growing since the mid-1990s.
In the spirit of ‘multi-sited ethnography’ (Marcus, 1995), Hess followed a group of
10 au pair women over two years, beginning prior to their departure from Slovakia,
continuing through their stay in Germany, and then as the women planned what to
do once their one-year au pair visas had expired. The coaches passing between
Slovakia and Germany, used by disproportionate numbers of au pair women,
offered her deep insight into the range of working and living conditions for au pairs
in Germany. As a participant observer, Hess witnessed the treatment of au pairs by
non-commercial agencies and gained access to host families that, according to
them, had no conflicts with their au pairs. The differing regional focus and varied
research design precludes a systematic comparison of the au pair markets of the
1 Annette Puckhaber
is deeply indebted to
Helma Lutz and Umut
Erel for their valued
advice.
Sabine Hess and Annette Puckhaber feminist review 77 2004 67
US and Germany. However, the results do suggest similarities in the experiences of au
pairs from post-socialist Eastern European and from Western industrial countries,
regardless of their country of origin, diverse socio-economic backgrounds, and
motivations for becoming au pairs. (For gender-specific effects of the processes of
transformation in post-socialist countries see. Ja¨hnert, et al., 2001) Due to the
capitalist globalization of Western post-industrial nations, one might assume that
similar developments may be found in countries such as Great Britain, with respect
to the practices of commercial au pair agencies and host families.
the official picture of cultural exchange
While the statements of au pair women from Slovakia and other eastern European
countries, who have increasingly come to dominate the German au pair market
since the end of the Cold War,2
point to the fact that host families employ au pairs
as domestic workers, the predominant picture promoted among the general public
is still that of au pair as a form of cultural exchange. ‘Living and learning with a
German host family’ is one of the slogans used in glossy brochures and increasingly
on the Internet by German agencies attempting to attract young women under the
age of 25 from Eastern and Western European countries (Gesellschaft fu¨r
internationale Jugendkontakte, 2001). Au pair, its French origin meaning ‘share
and share alike,’ is presented as a good opportunity to go abroad, particularly for
young women because they get to live with a host family instead of travelling
alone. In return for board and lodgings, an accident insurance policy and a little
pocket money (205 Euros in Germany), au pairs are expected to help with the
housework, generally presented as childcare, with enough free time to take
language courses and participate in other activities aimed at getting to know the
country and its people. The German government has also promoted this picture of
cultural exchange, stating in its reply to a parliamentary question in 2001:3
The main aim of au pair placements is to give young people the opportunity to get to know
foreign countries and cultures and to learn foreign languages by staying in a host family,
thereby fostering international understanding. The amount of work an au pair has to do
within the families is limited to assisting [emphasis added] with housework, which is
typical within the family division of labour.
(ibv 2001: 1169) (translation by the authors)
A similar discursive strategy may be found in the promotional material of British
and American au pair agencies. As one au pair agency states, ‘For generations,
young Europeans have chosen to spend a year in another country living as part of a
family while helping to look after the children. This experience provides them with
an opportunity to learn about a different culture, enhance their foreign language
skills, and expand their understanding of the world around them.’ (http://
www.euraupair.com/page1.cfm [as at 3 August 2000]). Further analysis of the
promotional literature indicates that au pair agencies use the image of ‘big sister’
2 The available
German data concerning
au pairs is
not only very limited
but also questionable
since the Bundesanstalt
fu¨r Arbeit
(BA) (Germany’s
federal employment
office) as the main
controlling authority
relies solely on information
supplied
by the licensed
agencies. In addition,
the BA did not
start recording EUEuropeans
and nonEU-Europeans
separately
until 1998. In
1999 it recorded
27,376 au pairs altogether,
13,900 of
which came from
non-EU-countries.
According to noncommercial
agencies
in Germany, East
European women
have made up almost
90 per cent of
all applicants since
the mid-1990 s. At
the same time, Germany
was only third
behind the United
States and Great
Britain in the list of
the most popular
destinations of au
pair applicants from
Slovakia. In 2000 the
German embassy to
Slovakia issued
1,700 au pair visa.
3 With this statement
the government
follows the
feminist review 77 2004 domestic servants68
in depicting the relationship between an au pair and her host family, suggesting
that the women will be integrated into the family unit (http://AUPAIRNetwork.com/aupair/aupair.htm
[as at 28 July 2000]):4
‘In their host country
they live with a family, they are treated as a family member, look after the
children and help around the house. In return, the au pairs receive free room and
board as well as weekly pocket money.’ (http://AUPAIR-Network.com/ap_germany/
english.htm [as at 28 July 2000]; Anderson, 2000: 122–125; Hempshell, 1998)
The statements of Slovakian au pair applicants before their departure indicate
that they also expected this type of relationship to develop between themselves
and their host families and did not expect to ‘work’ as part of their au pair
placement. Instead, they expected to share the housework with the host family
and did not view it as an ‘employer–employee’ relationship. Influenced by the
gendered image of domestic work as being a ‘natural’ female domain within the
family household, they did not view the required housework as a form of paid
labour. As they were all used to performing domestic tasks within their own
families, they believed that they knew how to do it and that this was all that would
be expected of them. They were also influenced by the ‘moral economy’ of
domestic work (Geissler, 2002: 39). In contrast to the ‘rational, monetaristic
contract’ underlying paid labour, domestic work is typically viewed as a ‘mutual
moral contract,’ embedded in the dense social and gendered relations of the
family. The women, therefore, saw their reward for helping with the housework not
in monetary terms but first and foremost in the ‘moral currency’ of appreciation,
caring and familial integration.
Given their expectation of being treated as ‘members of the family’, the women did
not view the required tasks as work but as ‘help’, as is understood within the moral
economy of domestic work. The image of the ‘big sister’ and the notion of ‘helping
around the house’, as portrayed in agency advertisements, also play on the logic
of the moral economy of domestic work and its promises. But, as has been pointed
out, the ‘moral economy’ entails the promise of appreciation and caring in return.
Yet, the au pairs Hess interviewed waited in vain for the recognition and gratitude
of their host parents, who saw the arrangement in very different terms. On the
other hand, given the number of stories about ill-treatment and use of the term
‘housemaid’ among au pair networks, it may be that hopes of being treated as a
‘member of the family’ were aimed at easing misgivings about becoming an au pair
and calming fears of being treated as a ‘servant.’ As Salazar Parrenas’s research
has shown, it is common for domestic workers from the Philippines in Italy and the
United States to describe themselves as members of the family, thereby using
‘intimacy to de-emphasize servitude’ (2000: 179.).
Au pair applicants only have agency rhetoric and their own hopes to inform their
expectations as there is no clear definition of au pair tasks in the ‘European
Agreement of the Council of Europe on the Employment of Au Pairs’ of 1969,5
the
national regulations and the instructions of employment offices for au pair
formulations of the
1969 ‘European
Agreement of the
Council of Europe on
the Employment of
Au Pairs’ which
reads: ‘‘Au pair’
placement is the
temporary reception
by families, in exchange
for certain
services, of young
foreigners who come
to improve their linguistic
and possibly
professional knowledge
as well as their
general culture by
acquiring a better
knowledge of the
country where they
are received.’ (cf.
Council of Europe,
1972, p.22, article
2,1)
4 Another au pair
agency points out
that inclusion in family
activities like
family meals and
holiday celebrations
shows that an au
pair is not like an
‘employee’ or a
‘servant’. From our
own experience we
know it is not that
simple. Even the intention
behind including
an au pair in
a vacation can be
for the purpose of
having a full–time
babysitter at hand
(de Jongh, 1998:
102).
5 To this day, Germany
has not signed
Sabine Hess and Annette Puckhaber feminist review 77 2004 69
agencies (Council of Europe, 1972). The National Guidelines for Au Pair
Organizations list the duties of au pairs as follows: ‘In addition to childcare, au
pairs may be asked to perform day–to–day duties in the household (i.e., light
housework). Au pairs should not be required to do heavy–duty chores.’ However,
few agencies offer even the minimal labour standards laid down by the European
Agreement to au pair applicants. These standards set the working week at 30 hours
with a maximum five–hour day, permit two evenings of work, and require one day
off per week on the weekend. Yet, Puckhaber’s research suggests the information
provided on au pair rights and duties in the agency brochures is cursory at best.
Hess has also found little evidence that commercial agencies in Slovakia attempt to
supply applicants with information or to provide a realistic impression of au pair life,
rather they appear to be more interested in making a quick deal. It, therefore, came
as no surprise to find that au pair applicants with whom she spoke prior to their
departure for Germany knew little about their rights or duties. Most seemed to think
that ‘If I am nice and help out, the host family will also be nice to me,’ a belief
informed by a notion of mutuality inherent within the moral economy of domestic
work. A similar attitude exists among West Europeans going to the United States as
au pairs. Expecting to be treated as a member of the host family, they were surprised
by the amount of work involved and how difficult it was. As one German au pair
commented, ‘Hard as it is to believe, I never thought seriously about the fact that I
would be working. It never once occurred to me that I would be working so hard, that
looking after three small children would be difficult, frustrating and tiring.’
The absence of formal regulations governing au pair placements encourages
commercial agencies to place greater emphasis on the quantity, rather than
quality, of their placements, which has a negative effect on the experience of the
applicants. As the type and amount of work is not specified in the regulations, it is
up to the applicant and host family to negotiate working conditions. The au pairs
are in a weak bargaining position due to a lack of information about their rights.
Furthermore, au pairs from Eastern Europe are especially vulnerable because they
are dependent upon their host families for their resident status, as the one–year
au pair visa is one of the few legal means of entering and working in Western
European countries.6
This means that their work permit, and consequently their
residence permit, expire early if the host families no longer want them and they
are unable to find a new family.
While the absence of formal regulations governing these arrangements tend to
have a negative effect on the experiences of the applicants, it offers an
opportunity for agencies and host families to fill the need for domestic workers by
employing au pairs. Under the guise of ‘cultural exchange,’ au pair placements
meet the demand for domestic labour, and it is this perception of au pair as
cultural exchange which discourages application of even the lowest legal
standards. Instead, there is a somewhat laissez-faire attitude on the part of the
national authorities (in Germany, the employment offices) towards the practices
the ‘European
Agreement of the
Council of Europe on
the Employment of
Au Pairs’ which was
again recommended
for ratification by
the European Commission
to its member
states in 1984.
The practical regulations
still follow
the minimal stan-
dards.
6 Since the end of
recruiting ‘guest
workers’ in the
1970s, German
immigration policy
offers only a few
temporary and subject-to-quota
possibilities
for working
migrants who are
non-EU-European
citizens. Besides
seasonal work for
three months per
year, which is mostly
work in farming or
building, there are
feminist review 77 2004 domestic servants70
of the agencies and the working conditions imposed by host families. In the mid-
1990s in Germany, the arrangement of au pair placements became increasingly
open so that churches and non-commercial agencies began to speak out against
the ‘uncontrolled proliferation’ of commercial agencies. Until 2002, the regulation
of au pair arrangements was under the control of the employment offices, with
private agencies having to apply for a licence to arrange au pair placements.
Despite this, the employment offices relied on agencies and host families to
evaluate and regulate themselves. Checking a potential host family, for example,
meant having them complete a questionnaire, and although agencies were
supposed to hand out leaflets to au pairs and families informing them about rights
and duties and employment offices advised them to visit host families to monitor
the au pairs’ working and living conditions, Hess never heard of any agencies
visiting host families during her two years of research. Even the practice of having
agencies apply for a licence to arrange au pair placements was abolished in March
2003, thereby removing all controls on au pair placements. A trading licence is now
sufficient to arrange placements, leading to a considerable increase in the number
of both small and large commercial au pair agencies.
big sisters as domestic workers
While au pair agencies try to attract applicants with slogans promoting cultural
exchange, they present a very different image to potential host families, proposing
an au pair as the solution to the difficult task of balancing work and family life
(http://www.efaupair.org/APFWhyEF.htm [as at 21 July 1999]):
Perhaps you are familiar with this feeling: You love your children and would like to take care
of them, but often you just cannot find the time with your job and other activities. This is
why you have decided to look for a responsible person with a flexible schedule to take care
of your children within the walls of your own home.
(http://www.gijk.de/pages/aupair-deut-1.html [as at 28 July 2000])
Hess’s research on host families in Germany indicates that many working women
seek au pairs for this very reason, as a form of paid domestic labour to help with
housework and childcare. It is important to point out that, in contrast to postcolonial
countries with a long tradition of live-in domestic workers (such as
France), the private labour market in Germany has a very specific structure of what
is called ‘person–related services’ (‘personenbezogene Dienstleistungen’ in
German) which comprise mainly jobs like cleaning, ironing and babysitting, all
paid by the hour (Lutz, 2000; Odierna, 2000). Looking back on the employment of
her first au pair, one mother of two small children said, ‘Gabi was the best
solution. I needed someone who was there fulltime, whom I could fall back on if
necessary.’ She and her husband had initially planned to rely on their grandmother
so that they could both continue working. But when the grandmother fell ill, the
couple had no other childcare alternative in their small village. The mother made
the options of a
contract for work
between a German
and a foreign company
as well as visas
for artists, athletes
and students. A work
permit for housework
is not available to
date.
Sabine Hess and Annette Puckhaber feminist review 77 2004 71
inquiries to the authorities regarding their options for paid childcare but received
no satisfactory answer. A friend, who had previously employed one au pair and was
now applying for another so that she could return to work after having her second
child, suggested she do the same. ‘A child minder or foster parents would have
meant that my children would have been out of their own home,’ she explained. ‘An
au pair in the house simply comes in handy. I never know if I’ll have to work
overtime. y. And now and then something crops up. I want to be flexible.’ The
other host mothers Hess interviewed – all middle-class women – had similar
reasons for seeking au pairs: the lack of public childcare in the form of a day
nursery and kindergarten. And, if this option was available, the hours of operation
were not always convenient and the absence of a family network meant having no
one to fall back on in emergencies. For these reasons, and the desire to return to
work as soon as possible after having a baby, made au pairs an
attractive alternative to childminders or babysitters since they live in and can
do housework.7
Having a live–in childminder meant always having someone to call
on, offering the utmost in flexibility. That was a crucial condition, especially for
host mothers with demanding jobs and long working hours. Their husbands’ careers
were rarely questioned, it always being left to the wives to organize childcare
and hire domestic help in order to compensate for working outside the
home. The gender–specific division of labour was, therefore, reproduced even in
the matter of delegating housework to another person (for motivations of
employers, see Hess, 2002).
As a result, the au pairs primarily interacted with the host mothers and had little
contact, personally or work–wise, with host fathers. Since the host fathers were
never present during the day and their wives assuming the task of assigning
childminding duties and housework, the host mothers were the primary targets of
au pair criticism regarding living and working conditions. Au pairs were assigned
the daily tasks of taking the children to school and picking them up, helping with
homework, doing laundry, ironing, cleaning, hoovering, and cooking.8
While their
German employers were glad to be freed of these ‘thankless and monotonous’ jobs,
as they called them, the au pairs quickly grew tired of the double load of childcare
and housework, finding them too much to handle. They also criticized the
monotony and boredom of such work as well as the lack of adult interaction,
particularly in the case of those responsible for infants. ‘I’m relieving my host
mother of all the tedious, day-to-day work and she only looks after the good
advice and the financial affairs connected with the children,’ complained Gabi.
This kind of labour division is also described in other studies on domestic work.
Simone Odierna’s research on migrant part–time workers, for example, shows that
jobs are often delegated to a third party according to the ‘degree of
inconvenience’ and their perceived social value, whereas childrearing tasks
entailing responsibility and creativity are done by the parents themselves
(Odierna, 2000: 125).
7 In contrast to, for
example, Scandinavian
countries or
Great Britain and
France, the prevalent
model of upbringing
in the west
of Germany is still
that of a ‘private
childhood’ which
manifests itself in
the state–run school
system where allday
schooling is the
exception.
8 Sabine Hess also
encountered in her
research instances
of au pairs having to
help in the garden or
work in farming or
the catering trade.
She also learned
about isolated cases
of forced prostitution
and sex work
mainly through
newspaper articles.
feminist review 77 2004 domestic servants72
The au pairs with whom Hess spoke complained of this division of labour as well as
about the long and irregular hours they were expected to work to accommodate
their employers’ work schedules. Puckhaber has found similar results. Marta’s host
mother, for example, was a midwife in Germany, meaning she did not have a fixed
work schedule but could be called into work at any time, including on weekends.
This meant that Marta was also on call. Liane, on the other hand, did have a fixed
work schedule but spent most of her free afternoons outside the house so that she
could not be called upon to do work during her spare time. Most of the au pairs
interviewed expressed frustration at their lack of control over their own schedules.
To them, the demands made by employers on their free time served to emphasize
the power imbalance between themselves and the host families.
At the same time, however, it took most of the au pairs several months to
recognize the dynamics of their relationships with their host families, to find their
treatment ‘unjust,’ and to demand clear boundaries between working hours and
free time. The lack of information on their rights and obligations as au pairs
impeded their ability to reach this stage, as did their live-in status. The blurred
line between workplace and home, between working hours and free time, between
‘working for money’ and ‘helping out as one of the family,’ had to be redrawn time
and time again.
Ironically, those au pairs who were better integrated into their host families were
at a disadvantage in this regard, for being treated as one of the family often
deterred them from complaining about their working and living conditions. Hess
found that these were the women who found it most difficult to express their
dissatisfaction. As ‘one of the family,’ employers could ask the au pairs to work
more than the hours agreed upon, their argument being, ‘We are one family, you
can not leave us alone with the child care.’ In so doing, they disguised the working
relationship by using the discourse of the moral economy emphasizing cooperation
and mutual responsibility. This was how the au pairs had originally conceived their
role in the household but within months of arriving in Germany, they realized that
they would not receive anticipated recognition or gratitude for their service. As a
result, they began to question the nature of their relationship to their host families
and came to see their work equal to that of paid labour. However, due to their
dependence on the host family, they were reluctant to raise issues that might
result in a disagreement. Instead, some of the women began to think of themselves
as having a maternal role, criticizing their working host mothers for neglecting
their children. Having assumed responsibility for childcare and housework, it was
difficult for them to remain uninvolved (Geissler, 2002; Resch, 2002). This was
particularly true in the case of au pairs responsible for small children. In order to
establish a good relationship with the children, they devoted themselves
completely, whole–heartedly and lovingly to caring for the children, ignoring the
hours involved. Furthermore, as it was often the children who developed the
strongest attachments to the au pairs, coming to accept them unconditionally as
Sabine Hess and Annette Puckhaber feminist review 77 2004 73
family members, the au pairs were willing to accept the long hours and felt guilty
for demanding shorter hours and a set work schedule. As Gabi, one of the au pairs
responsible for a young child, said, ‘Can I really leave the small boy alone? I really
like him. But I have cared for him all of the time now I have to look out for myself.’
In this respect, the ‘big sister’ image promises a more malleable domestic servant
because being seen as a member of the family allows employers to use the logic of
the moral economy to expect more than they could from a paid employee. While
the discourse of the moral economy allowed employers to demand longer hours and
greater flexibility, to the au pairs it meant exchanging service for gratitude and
kindness. This, however, was not always the case. More commonly, the au pairs felt
they were treated as second-class family members in their daily interactions with
the host families. This was evident in terms of the ‘spatial inequalities’ within the
household (Parrenas, 2001: 165) as well as in host parents’ attempts to control
them by placing restrictions on their eating habits, personal hygiene and even their
sexuality. Such practices were considered humiliating and were ultimately
responsible for creating the impression that the au pairs were really only relevant
to the host families as employees.
Puckhaber’s research demonstrates that au pairs were frequently relegated to
living in the host family’s basement. As Liane, one such au pair, described it, ‘The
accommodationsy left much to be desired. I spent the first five months in a
windowless room in the basement.’ Liane quit when her host family requested that
she vacate her room temporarily to accommodate another guest. Not every au pair
was as forceful, however. Some put up with shared accommodation during family
vacations because the host parents did not want to pay for a separate bedroom,
despite the fact that they had decided to bring the au pair with them to serve as a
babysitter. Bathrooms were another issue. Although many au pairs in the United
States are given a separate bathroom, this does not necessarily mean that it is
restricted solely for their use. Sometimes they have to share their bathrooms with
houseguests or with the children. The biggest issue when it came to living–in,
however, was that the host family set the rules regarding visitors. Some were very
generous and might even provide a bedroom for the au pair’s parents when they
visited but other host families were less accommodating, forbidding any visitors in
their home. According to the interviews conducted by Hess, host families also
attempted to place restrictions on the social interactions of the au pairs. Some
tried, for example, to limit how often the au pair was allowed to receive
phone calls from their families at home and even regulated local contact
with other women.
Both researchers found that food was another area of complaint for the au pairs.
The quality of the food varied greatly as groceries were bought and meals prepared
according to the dictates of the host family. Some completely disregarded the
likes and dislikes of their au pair. In the case of Heike who lived with a host family
in the United States, they planned what she would eat with the children a day in
feminist review 77 2004 domestic servants74
advance without consulting her. Whereas another au pair, Gudrun, was allowed to
help herself to anything in the fridge on a particular shelf. This shelf, however,
contained less desirable and smaller amounts of food than the shelf for the
children. She ended up being the only au pair within her circle of friends who lost
quite a bit of weight during her year-long placement. Some of the au pairs with
whom Hess spoke also reported not being allowed to eat with the family. Other
areas of complaint included being permitted to do laundry only once a week and
the restrictions placed on matters of personal hygiene on the basis of a supposed
environmental awareness.
It has been shown that the official image of the au pair placement as a form of
cultural exchange helps disguise the nature of the work involved and ensures that
working conditions are only minimally regulated, thus meeting the needs of host
families. It has also been shown that au pair applicants had a very different
expectation of their placements, anticipating a level of family integration rarely
achieved. Instead, they found themselves treated as a convenience for working
host parents for they could be called upon at any hour to perform childcare duties.
This was how au pair agencies, expecting big business in Germany when licences
were no longer obligatory and state control was removed, portrayed the
placements to potential host families. Yet, due to the image of cultural exchange,
few researchers who study paid domestic service perceive au pairs as domestic
workers, even when host families report having employed au pairs (Odierna, 2000).
With time, however, the au pairs in Hess’ study began to express doubts about
claims of cultural exchange and family integration and to question their position
within the family.
big sister going her own way
Through her longitudinal study of Slovakian au pairs in Germany, Hess found that
the women also took advantage of the limited public attention given to their
situation. Through their emerging networks – other au pairs often being their only
social contacts outside the host family – they came to achieve an awareness of
their situation. In their exchanges with other au pairs, they learned about conflict
management strategies to help them achieve their goals. All of them, for example,
eventually initiated wage negotiations with their employers and demanded regular
working hours. Those who were not confident enough to openly confront their host
families chose passive resistance, retreating from the family sphere whenever
possible by staying in their rooms or going out to meet other au pairs. Some of the
women, having no support from the agencies and seeing no way of resolving their
situations, decided to return temporarily to their home country. During the final
two months of her placement, Gabi noted, ‘First, I had to learn that I was not their
servant having to wait around all day for work to do. Now I immediately leave the
house as soon as I’ve finished work.’ When her year was up, she said, ‘The work was
Sabine Hess and Annette Puckhaber feminist review 77 2004 75
hard and boring but outside it was great. It was a good experience after all.’ Being
faced with unemployment in Slovakia and not having saved enough money to pay
for university, she decided to work in Germany for another year. Nor did Tatjana’s
negative experience with her host family stop her from choosing another placement
in Germany over unemployment and boredom at home in Slovakia.
This differing socio-economic backgrounds between au pairs from western post–
industrial countries and those from eastern or southern peripheral countries marks
an enormous difference among the women studied (Hess and Lenz, 2001), and while
the former enjoy almost global freedom of movement, the transnational mobility of
the latter is highly restricted by the immigration policies of western countries (for
specific effects on women see Kofman and Sales, 1998). The au pair visa in Germany,
for instance, is valid for only one year and alternative opportunities for women
wishing to emigrate are extremely limited. Hence, both Gabi and Tatjana had to find
placements without official documents the following year. They had no difficulty in
finding host families by word of mouth who were ready to employ them, even without
visas and work permits, and other au pairs told them how to arrange a ‘legal’ entry
into the country. They came as tourists, which entitled them to a three-month stay
but did not give them permission to work. After three months they went back for a
certain period of time only to try it again later.
With these follow-up strategies after their year placement, the young women
assumed their place among the many migrant domestic workers without official
papers who commute from their Eastern European home countries to Western
European countries in the three–month cycle of tourist visa exemption (Irek, 1998;
Morokvasic and Rudolph, 1994). Studies of unofficial domestic servants from
Poland show how they make a virtue of necessity by forming job-sharing
communities. Several women share employer families by turns. This rotational
practice makes it possible for them to work and care for their own families at
home while earning a living for their families in Germany, Austria or Switzerland,
among other countries (Irek, 1998). In this respect the ‘private household’, almost
invisible to public control, represents a flexible workplace for migrant women
lacking legal status. On her coach rides between Germany and Slovakia, Hess met
former au pair women who had been leading this kind of lifestyle for five years or
more before deciding to marry a German – that being the only way of obtaining a
permanent residence permit – or finding more promising prospects in Slovakia.
These migration strategies of highly mobile women participating in paid domestic
work in the Western European countries only hints at the new division of
reproductive labour and the new intra–gender power relations while the
intersection of gender, ethnicity, nationality and class gains new momentum in
the wake of globalization. The transnational migration strategies also raise a
number of questions about traditional migration theories: First, they point to the
fact that even under poor, unregulated working conditions, those involved manage
to achieve some of their goals with respect to immigrating to the ‘West’. In doing
feminist review 77 2004 domestic servants76
so, they destroy our image of the dangerous public sphere where migrants without
papers are hiding in order to evade controls. In the case of paid domestic work,
the highly gendered notions of private and public sphere are being altered as in the
public sphere au pairs experience a level of freedom. Second, the migration
strategy of commuting and transnationalizing the life-project integrating at least
two countries highlights the increasing importance of the social phenomenon of
transnational mobility in the new millennium. At first sight this may appear as a
contradiction to the fact that the European Union and its member states are trying
to close themselves off against new migrants during the last 10 years. But it is the
restrictive migration policy of Western European countries as Germany which limits
immigration that is resulting in the prevalence of irregular entry strategies such as
the use of tourist visas and job sharing (Hess and Lenz, 2001; Rogers, 2001).
These highly mobile migration strategies and the associated lifestyles and cultures
transcend our common understanding of migration as an uni-directional process of
emigration and immigration. They also question the political notion of integration in
societies of settlement which is in most Western countries a prerequisite for getting
citizenship rights. Migration research which wants to come to terms with this
growing phenomena of transnational migration has to transnationalize its
theoretical and methodological tools (Bash, et al., 1994). It has to focus on the
practices and reasoning of migrants who try to find their way through the economic
and political uncertainties and restrictive migration policies by combining the
resources of more than one national context. Gender migration studies have to play
a central role in this reformulation process as transnational research projects hint
at the fact that gender is playing a decisive role in hindering as well as promoting
specific transnational lifestyles (Anderson, 2001; Salih, 2000; Ong, 1999).
author biographies
Annette Puckhaber has published on social history and migration.
Sabine Hess has been working as assistant lecturer at the Institute of Cultural
Anthropology and European Ethnology since 1998. Her PhD is on new migrational
strategies of eastern European women to Germany against the background of the
EU integration policies towards the Eastern European countries. Her main areas of
research and teaching are globalization and transnationalization processes in
Europe, migration and gender. Since 2003, she is coordinator and researcher in the
research and film project ‘trans-it! Migrations’ founded by the cultural foundation
of Germany, which is working on transit-migration in South Eastern Europe.
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doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400177
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