Hypervulnerability and Agency: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Migrant Women Working in the Domestic Services Sector

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted, reproduced, and exacerbated inequalities at both the national and international level (Settersten et al., 2020). And although the public health crisis has destabilised everyone’s lives, it has impacted some groupsmore than others.

Migrants with precarious legal status and female workers in the domestic services sector have clearly faced unique challenges. These women occupy the lowest rungs of the social ladder in terms of class, citizenship, gender, and ethnorace and are confronted with restrictive migration policies. From both a structural and individual perspective, this lack of power raises questions about the potential for them to overcome the inequalities and discrimination they face (or at least reduce the associated risks). Moreover, the limited public and private assistance available has been subject to additional legal restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, a situation that threatens to further reinforce inequalities by depriving domestic workers of access to the social safety net. We hypothesise that, during Covid-19, migrant women working in the domestic services sector have found themselves experiencing what could be termed “hypervulnerability.” Our aim is to study the impact of the pandemic on all aspects of these women’s lives, while exploring different forms of agency they have been able to exercise in response to the public health crisis.

Our study will build on and expand knowledge in the following three fields of research: Covid-19 and its social and health consequences , domestic work, and agency. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted, reproduced, and exacerbated inequalities at both the national and international level (Settersten et al., 2020). And although the public health crisis has destabilised everyone’s lives, it has impacted some groups more than others. Migrants with precarious legal status and female workers in the domestic services sector have clearly faced unique challenges. These women occupy the lowest rungs of the social ladder in terms of class, citizenship, gender, and ethnorace and are confronted with restrictive migration policies. From both a structural and individual perspective, this lack of power raises questions about the potential for them to overcome the inequalities and discrimination they face (or at least reduce the associated risks). Moreover, the limited public and private assistance available has been subject to additional legal restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, a situation that threatens to further reinforce inequalities by depriving domestic workers of access to the social safety net. We hypothesise that, during Covid-19, migrant women working in the domestic services sector have found themselves experiencing what could be termed “hypervulnerability.” Our aim is to study the impact of the pandemic on all aspects of these women’s lives, while exploring different forms of agency they have been able to exercise in response to the public health crisis. Our study will build on and expand knowledge in the following three fields of research: Covid-19 and its social and health consequences , domestic work, and agency.