Domestic help workers and legislation: experiences from the past

In the presentation, I will demonstrate how the position of domestic help/workers was regulated by the legislation in the past. In the 19th century the paternalistic views in legislation on domestic work were present, after World War I, when the social state was the goal of the politics, the legislation on domestic workers changed with more emphasis on improving working conditions. After World War II, the Communist state sought to improve the working conditions of domestic workers with new legislation that featured an abundance of regulations; however, the nature of the work remained elusive, and women found new ways to remain in the grey zone and to adjust to the new legislation according to their needs. The relationship between the private space of family, where domestic work is done, and the public concern – paid work which has to be regulated by the employment legislation is a problem which has been addressed continuously since the 19th century, with different solutions having been implemented, yet some issues remain elusive and open.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

She studied History and Sociology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, where she graduated in 2001. Between 2004 and 2007 she was employed as an Assistant Researcher at the Department of Sociology (Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana). She completed her PhD thesis entitled The Female Right to Vote as Democratic Innovation in 2007. She was elected an Assistant for Sociology of Culture in 2005, while in 2011 she was elected an Assistant for Slovenian and General Modern History, and in 2014 Assistant Professor of Slovenian and General Modern History. Between 2007 and 2014 she worked as a researcher at the Department of Sociology and Department of History. Since 2011 she has been teaching Slovenian Nineteenth-Century History and Women’s History. She published her book The Entrance of Women in Slovenian Politics (2008) and contributed to numerous monographs and articles on the subject of social and political history.

She collaborates on the EIRENE project.