The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically elevated awareness of work as foundational to the US economy. Furthermore, it underscored the importance of “good jobs,” defined in part as jobs where workers have the power and voice to ensure their workplace-related concerns and ideas will be fairly considered and acted upon. This includes people involved in domestic and care work, which is among the fastest-growing occupations in the US.

Domestic work is the invisible scaffolding in the US economy and society: It enables women’s labor force participation, helps the elderly to age in place, and eases pressure on the “sandwich generation” who care for their children and parents at the same time. Yet these essential jobs often pay poverty wages, rarely include benefits or access to safety nets, and involve a severe power imbalance between employer and worker—and these workers are disproportionately women of color and immigrant women. It is critical to better understand domestic worker’s voices and influence at work, and potential of these factors to transform domestic work jobs into good jobs.

Building on existing research about worker voice in other sectors, a team led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), NDWA Labs, and the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research will explore this idea by conducting an online survey, drawing a sample from the nearly 200,000 Spanish-speaking US domestic workers that NDWA communicates with regularly (house cleaners, nannies, and home care workers). Results from the survey will create a baseline for understanding domestic worker voice and build on previous worker voice research, helping to identify key aspects of work where domestic workers perceive having more or less voice and influence. Findings could inform the development and enforcement of labor protections for domestic workers as well as other pathways for increasing workers’ voice and power in what are often precarious and private work arrangements.