The Economic Benefits of Domestica Employment: The Case of Mexicans

Rogelio Saenz

Texas A&M University

and

Karen Manges Douglas Sam Houston State University

Abstract

Mexican immigrant women in the United States are most likely to be working as domesticas (maids) more so than in any other occupation in the United States. This occupation provides many women with weak ties in which they gain knowledge about the social world of their employers, especially in areas with relatively large Mexican-origin populations. This paper examines the extent to which Mexican immigrant husbands gain economic benefits from their wives’ employment as domesticas. Data from the 2000 5% Public Use Microdata Sample are used to conduct the analysis. The results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences in hourly wages between Mexican immigrant husbands whose wives are employed as domesticas and their counterparts whose wives are employed in other occupations. However, we find a significant interaction effect between domestica employment and the relative size of the Mexican population in the area of residence. As such, Mexican men whose wives are employed as domesticas and who live in areas with a greater presence of Mexicans have higher hourly wages than do their counterparts.

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The Economic Benefits of Domestica Employment:

The Case of Mexicans Even though there have been changes in the sex composition of Mexican

migration to the United States, this movement continues to be predominantly male

(Donato 1993). For example, among Mexicans 16 to 44 years of age who first

immigrated to the United States in the 1990-2000 period, there were 139 males for every

100 females. For many Mexican males in traditionally and emerging migrant-sending

communities, it is almost a rite of passage to migrate to the United States. This

movement is facilitated greatly by the numerous and strong ties that Mexican males have

to relatives (fathers, uncles, cousins) and friends who have acquired migration experience

and knowledge (Kandel and Massey 2002). Upon arrival in the United States, Mexican

males tap their social networks to secure employment. Not surprisingly, Mexican males

tend to associate and work alongside individuals that are primarily like them—other

Mexican male working in similar occupations and industries. Such strong ties limit

social mobility in the labor market because they have access to limited information that

exists within their social network (Hagan 1998).

On the other hand, Mexican female immigrants do not have as many or as strong

of ties as their male counterparts (Aguilera 2002; Martinez-Schallmoser et al. 2005;

Parrado 2005; see also Hagan 1994, 1998; Menjivar 1997, 2000). Female immigration—

particularly on an undocumented basis—is a relatively new phenomenon. Thus, Mexican

females cannot draw on well established social networks based on their relatives (e.g.,

mothers, aunts, and sisters) or friends as are Mexican males. Furthermore, contrary to

Mexican males, Mexican females often find employment in isolated work settings where

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they do not work alongside co-ethnics but instead develop weak ties to a wider variation

of people who do not possess similar attributes as them. In fact, the occupation of

domestica (or maid) represents such a work environment. More Mexican immigrant

females work in this occupation compared to any other occupation. The 194,869

Mexican immigrant women who work as domesticas in 2000 accounted for nearly one-

tenth (9.1%) of all employed Mexican immigrant women at that time. Given the large

number of Mexican immigrant women working as domesticas, it is not surprising that we

have seen several indepth analyses of these women (see Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994b,

1994c, 2001a, 2001b; Richardson and Torres 1999; Romero 1987, 1988a, 1988b, 2002;

Ruiz 1987; for research on groups besides Mexicans, see Dill 1988; Glenn 1986; Rollins

1985; Salzinger 1991). As some domesticas gain access to the social worlds of their

employers, they may learn about employment opportunities which they can relay to

spouses/partners and other significant others.

This research uses data from the 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample to examine

the extent to which foreign-born Mexican husbands in the United States gain

economically from their wives’ employment as domesticas.

Comments from the Literature

Much research has examined the labor market experiences of husbands and wives.

For example, it is well known that men receive greater benefits from being married than

do women, as is the case with health outcomes as well. Nonetheless, there is increasing

amounts of research that has focused on how the characteristics of each spouse contribute

to the labor market experiences of the other. This move represents the newer

understanding—as elaborated in the new economics of migration or the home economics

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perspective—that spouses are part of a household production unit with the ultimate goal

being maximizing the household’s resources. Thus, from this perspective, Mexican

immigrant households have been viewed as units that seek to maximize the economic

resources while minimizing risks (see Massey et al. 1993). As such in order to minimize

the risks associated with unemployment, failed crops, and the absence of financial

institutions to help families get through economic crises in Mexico, households marshal

their members into a variety of economic activities. This may involve certain household

members working in subsistence agriculture, working in the local community, working in

large cities in Mexico, and still others working in the United States. In the case of

Mexican immigrant households in the United States, household members draw on the

resources of each other to maximize their economic outcomes while minimizes their

risks.

We draw on the Granovetter’s (1973, 1983) notion of the “strengths of weak ties”

to understand how the employment of women as domesticas may provide economic

spillover benefits to their husbands. Granovetter suggests that people who have primarily

strong ties have limited information because kindred network partners are likely to have

the same information as each other. In contrast, weak ties allow people access to a wider

variety of contacts that possess diverse information. Granovetter (1983:202) illustrates

the different forms of information that strong and weak ties allow individuals.

Ego [a selected individual] will have a collection of close friends, most of whom are in touch with one another—a densely knit clump of social structure. Moreover, Ego will have a collection of acquaintances, few of whom know one another. Each of these acquaintances, however, is likely to have close friends in his own right and therefore to be enmeshed in a closely knit clump of social structure, but one different from Ego’s. The weak tie between Ego and his acquaintance, therefore, becomes not merely a trivial acquaintance tie but rather a crucial bridge between the

5

two densely knit clumps of close friends….these clumps would not, in fact, be connected to one another at all were it not for the existence of weak ties….It follows, then, that individuals with few weak ties will be deprived of information from distant parts of the social system and will be confined to the provincial news and views of their close friends. This deprivation will not only insulate them from the latest ideas and fashions but may put them in a disadvantaged position in the labor market, where advancement can depend…on knowing about appropriate job openings at just the right time. As such, people benefit economically and otherwise from their weak ties.

Research on immigrants provides support for this perspective. For example,

various researchers have noted the major obligations and constraints that strong ties

introduce not only in dealing with the needs of members of the social network but also in

achieving social mobility (Hagan 1998; Menjivar 1997, 2000). For example, Hagan

(1998) has shown how Mayan women are able to advance socially and economically as

they attain weak ties outside of their social circle. Thus, while Mexican men tend to gain

significant amounts of social support and information to navigate migration and to locate

employment, they may be hindered in achieving social mobility by remaining tied to their

strong social networks. In contrast, Mexican women are less bound by social networks

and have been shown to have greater amounts of contact with societal institutions than

men (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994a). Women are also likely to come into contact with a

wider variety of people and to develop weak ties in the workplace. This is particularly

the case in the occupation of domestica.

While Mexican women often rely on strong ties to gain a foothold in the

domestica occupation, upward mobility depends heavily on their weak ties. Hondagneu-

Sotelo (1994c) illustrates the path that Mexican immigrant women typically take to

obtain employment as a domestica. Many use their strong ties to enter the occupation as

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apprentices, where they get their foot in the door of the cleaning business. However, this

path tends to be associated with low pay and exploitative work conditions. As these

women gain experience and establish contacts, they may then become self-employed. In

other instances, Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994c) indicates that women may use weak ties to

gain work as a domestica. For example, she illustrates the case of a Mexican immigrant

woman who had difficulty obtaining a job and finally settled for work as a barmaid. This

particular woman was able to obtain the lead on a domestica job from a bar customer who

worked as a gardener and had heard through his position that a woman was seeking a

domestica, a position that the woman obtained.

Weak social ties are also quite important in the socioeconomic advancement of

domesticas. Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994c) points out that the most successful domesticas

gain recommendations and are referred by their employers. In such instances, these

domesticas are able to negotiate more favorable pay and to pick the most attractive jobs

and shun or quit those that are less desirable. In this way, like the male gardener

described above, domesticas gain information from their weak ties—their employers as

well as other employees who are directly employed by the employers (e.g., gardeners) as

well as others who come into contact with domesticas in their employers’ homes (e.g.,

plumbers, carpenters, cable workers, etc.). Domesticas can use leads from such weak ties

to advance their own work situations as well as the work situations of members of their

close social circles, including husbands, other relatives, and friends. As such, despite

many Mexican immigrant men having strong ties which they tap for employment, they

may have access to additional benefits derived from their wives’/partners’ weak ties.

7

This is not to say, however, that domesticas rely simply on weak ties for bettering

their work conditions and gaining information. For instance, Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994c)

describes the information that domesticas share with each other regarding tips on

housecleaning, negotiating with employers, and so forth. Similarly, we are not

suggesting that Mexican immigrant men have only strong ties, but that they tend to be in

work environments more likely to involve strong ties. We suggest that they can also tap

their strong ties (e.g., spouses and partners, neighbors, friends, etc.) to gain job-related

information from the weak ties of their strong ties.

In fact, as Granoveter (1983) acknowledges, the poor tend to have access and rely

heavily on strong ties (see also Stack 1974). Weak ties become more prevalent and

useful with increasing levels of education. Granoveter (1983) points out that weak ties

for persons from lower socioeconomic status tend to be relatively close in their social

circle, typically representing “friends’ or relatives’ acquaintances…[and, thus]…the

information that they provide would then not constitute a real broadening of opportunity”

(p. 208). Furthermore, Granoveter (1983) indicates that weak ties for low-status

individuals are potentially beneficial when it involves an individual with higher status.

As such, the job of domestica has the potential to provide weak ties with employers who

hold higher status positions.

However, the structure of the work place varies for domesticas. In some cases,

domesticas live in the home of their employers or work in these homes during the day but

live in their own homes after work (Glantz 2005). However, it is especially likely that

they contract with their employers to clean their homes with domesticas having multiple

houses that they clean (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994c, 2001a). In such instances, many

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domesticas may have little, if any, contact with their employers—in some cases, the

employer may not be at home or may avoid direct interaction with the domestica.

Furthermore, even if the employer is present and available to interact, there may be

communication barriers due to a variety of barriers, such as language, cultural, and

socioeconomic.

As such, it is more likely that the potential for domesticas to have weak ties with

their employer is in cases where barriers are lessened. This is likely the case when the

domestica shares a language and culture with the employer. Under such conditions,

domesticas are more likely to gain information from outside of their social circles. We

assume that, for persons of Mexican-origin, this form of employer-employee relationship

is most likely to exist in places where the Mexican-origin population is relatively larger.

Drawing on the literature, we hypothesize that: 1) Mexican immigrant men who

have spouses who are domesticas have more favorable labor market outcomes (hourly

wages) compared to those whose spouses are employed in other occupations (Hypothesis

1) and 2) Mexican immigrant men who have spouses who are domesticas and who live in

places with a greater relative presence of Mexicans have more favorable hourly wages

than their respective counterparts (Hypothesis 2).

Methods

Data from the 2000 5% Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) are used to

conduct the analysis. One of the key features of the PUMS is that it contains sufficiently

large samples to conduct analysis involving racial/ethnic and immigrants groups. The

sample used in our analysis consists of 25,580 Mexican immigrant men who had earnings

in 1999, who worked at least 1,040 hours that year (equivalent to half a year of

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employment on a full-time basis), who were not high school graduates, and whose

Mexican immigrant wives were employed in 1999. The 1,040 hour employment

restriction is used to insure that people used in the analysis were significantly attached to

the labor force.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable for the analysis is the logged hourly wage of Mexican

immigrant men. The hourly wage was derived by dividing a person’s wage and salary

income in 1999 by the total number of hours worked in 1999 (weeks worked * hours

worked per week). In order to minimize outliers in the hourly wage distribution, the

hourly wage is logged. The logged form of the hourly wage allows for easy

interpretation of the regression coefficients. The coefficients represent the percentage

change in the hourly wage given a one-unit change in the independent variable. Ideally,

we would have more direct measures of the economic benefits of having a wife who

works as a domestica such as number of jobs or hours worked in jobs linked to leads that

a man received from his wife. Unfortunately, the 2000 PUMS does not have such

information. We realize that the hourly wage represents at best a rough proxy for the

economic benefit that husbands receive from their wives and that the hourly wage is

affected by a wide variety of other factors, some of these which we attempt to control for

(see below).

Independent Variable

The major independent variable is wife’s employment as a domestica. This

variable is a dummy variable with a value of “1” assigned to women who were employed

as domesticas (occupation code 423: maids and housekeeping cleaners) in 1999 and a

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value of “0” given to women who were employed in all other industries in 1999. Note

that some individuals may have multiple jobs but can only report one occupation (the one

associated with their primary job). Thus, there may be cases where women work as

domesticas on the side, which are not identified as such in the analysis.

Contextual Variable

We hypothesize that the association between the wife’s employment as a

domestica and the husband’s hourly wage is stronger in places where the Mexican-origin

population is relatively larger (Hypothesis 2). In particular, we argue that the presence of

an ethnic enclave enhances or depresses the association of interest. We measure the

relative size of the Mexican-origin population by the percentage of the population of a

given Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA, areas that have at least 100,000 individuals)

that is of Mexican-origin. We use this measure as a variable in our model. Furthermore,

to examine the Hypothesis 2, we interact the relative size of the Mexican-origin

population with the wife’s domestica employment to assess whether the strength of the

relationship between the wife’s employment and the husband’s hourly wage varies by the

relative size of the Mexican-origin population.

Control Variables

We use 12 variables that are typically used as control variables in analyses of

earnings. These are listed below.

1. Age (dummy variables): a) 25-34; b) 35-44; c) 45-54; d) 55-64; e) 65 and older; reference category = 16-24.

2. English proficiency (dummy variable): a) speaks English well or very

well; reference category = speaks English not well or not at all. 3. Citizenship status (dummy variable): a) U.S. naturalized citizen; reference

category = not a U.S. naturalized citizen.

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4. Period of immigration to the United States (dummy variables): a) before

1970; b) 1970-1979; c) 1980-1989; reference category = 1990-2000. 5. Education (dummy variable): a) some high school education or higher (9

or more year of education); reference category = less than 9 years of education.

6. Occupational status (interval-level variable): occupational status score

associated with a given occupation ranging from 1 to 100 (obtained from Nam and Boyd 2004).

7. Self-employment (dummy variable): a) self-employed; reference category

= not self-employed. 8. Experience (interval-level variable): age – years of education – 5. 9. Experience squared (interval-level variable): experience2. 10. Disability (dummy variable): a) disabled; reference category = not

disabled. 11. Metropolitan residence (dummy variable): a) metropolitan residence; b)

mixed metropolitan and nonmetropolitan residence; reference category = nonmetropolitan residence.

12. Region (dummy variable): a) Southwest (Arizona, California, Colorado,

New Mexico, and Texas); reference category = Outside of the Southwest. Statistical Analysis

The analysis is conducted using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. We use

two models to carry out the analysis. The first model regresses the husband’s hourly

wages on the domestica employment of the wife, the relative size of the Mexican-origin

population, and the control variable. The second model introduces the interaction term

between domestica employment and relative size of the Mexican-origin population into

the analysis.

Results

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We begin with a description of the hourly wages of husbands whose wives are

employed as domesticas versus those whose wives are not employed as domesticas. The

results show that husbands whose wives work as domesticas actually have slightly lower

hourly wages ($11.08) compared to their counterparts whose wives are employed in other

occupations ($11.49). Thus, the preliminary descriptive analysis does not support

Hypothesis 1. However, to better assess the hypothesis, we need to turn to the

multivariate analysis.

Table 1 shows the results for the two OLS models. Model 1 regresses the

husband’s hourly wage on the wife’s domestica employment, relative size of the

Mexican-origin population, and the control variables. Overall, the independent,

contextual, and control variables account for 12.5 percent of the variation in the

dependent variable. The results indicate that there is not a statistically significant

relationship between wives’ domestica employment and husbands’ hourly wage. Taking

into account all other variables included in the analysis, the hourly wages of husbands do

not differ on the basis of the occupation of their wives. Again, then, Hypothesis 1 is not

supported.

--Table 1 about here--

The contextual variable—the relative size of the Mexican-origin population—is

significantly related to the hourly wages of husbands. In particular, hourly wages decline

as the relative size of the Mexican-origin population increases. This pattern is consistent

with Blalock’s (1967) relative group size perspective suggesting that the socioeconomic

status of minority groups declines as their relative size increases.

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Most of the control variables are related to hourly wages in the expected direction.

Thus, husbands who are proficient in English, who are U.S. naturalized citizens, who

have lived in the United States longer, who have at least some high school education,

who have greater amounts of experience, who live in metropolitan areas, and who live

outside of the Southwest tend to have higher hourly wages.

Exploring the Interaction Term

We now turn our attention to Model 2 (Table 1) which introduces the interaction

term between wife’s domestica employment and the relative size of the Mexican-origin

population. Recall that we constructed this interaction term to assess Hypothesis 2 which

predicted that Mexican immigrant men with a wife working as a domestica and who lived

in places with a relatively larger Mexican-origin population have higher hourly wages

than their respective counterparts. The results show that the interaction term is

statistically significant, thus providing support to Hypothesis 2. Specifically, the results

indicate that wives’ employment as domesticas alongside a greater relative size of the

Mexican-origin population is associated with higher hourly wages among husbands.

Mexican ethnic enclaves are associated with a greater relative presence of the Mexican-

origin population. In these settings, typical weak ties may be strengthened somewhat by

ethnic affinity, resulting in true communication and transmission of information across

people with varying status levels.

We illustrate further how the economic benefits of husbands whose wives are

employed as domesticas varies by the relative size of the Mexican-origin data revisiting

our descriptive average hourly wage data. Figure 1 shows the average hourly wages of

husbands by the occupation of their wives (domestica versus all other occupations) and

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by the relative size of the Mexican-origin population (less than 25.0%; 25.0%-49.9%; and

50.0% or higher). Compared to the average hourly wage of husbands whose wives are

not domesticas, those with wives working as domesticas have hourly earnings that are 6.5

percent lower in places where Mexican comprise less than one-fourth of the population

and 2.7 percent lower in areas where Mexicans account for between 25 percent and 49.9

percent of the population. However, these husbands actually have average wages that are

4.5 percent higher than those whose wives work in other occupations in places where

Mexicans make up at least half of the population. Results based on the OLS regressions

broken down by the three relative-size categories also reveals similar findings—the

coefficients representing the relationship between wives’ domestica employment and

husbands’ hourly wages are -0.027 (less than 25%), -0.003 (25.0%-49.9%), and 0.046

(50.0% or higher), although the coefficients are not statistically significant.

--Figure 1 about here--

We also conducted the same analysis of wives’ hourly wages. We find that there

is no significant association between working as a domestica (versus working in all other

occupations) and their hourly wage. In addition, the interaction term between being a

domestica and the relative group size of the Mexican-origin population is not statistically

significant. Furthermore, analysis based on descriptive average hourly wages comparing

domestica and non-domesticas across the three levels of the relative size of the Mexican-

origin population shows that domesticas are disadvantaged with respect to their wages

particularly as the relative size of the ethnic group rises: -5.6% (less than 25%), -10.7%

(25.0%-49.9%), and -14.2% (50.0% or higher). As such, domesticas themselves do not

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receive benefits from their occupation and their wages do not increase with a rising

presence of co-ethnics.

Conclusions

We suggested that Mexican immigrant domesticas gain job-related information

from their weak ties associated with their jobs and that this information can be relayed to

their significant others (including husbands and partners) who may gain economic

benefits from such leads. Furthermore, we predicted that this benefit would be realized

especially in settings with relatively larger Mexican-origin populations. The results

indicate that overall Mexican immigrant husbands do not receive an hourly wage

advantage when their wives are employed as domesticas. However, the wages of these

men with wives who are domesticas increases noticeably in areas with a greater presence

of the Mexican-origin population. We suggest that the weak ties of domesticas in ethnic

enclaves may be stronger than are weak ties in areas with fewer co-ethnics which

translate to more favorable economic outcomes for their husbands. Nonetheless,

Mexican immigrant domesticas do not themselves receive such wage benefits from their

jobs even in areas where the Mexican-origin population is large. Hence, it is clear that

gender stratification is at work, with domesticas—and Mexican immigrant workers as a

whole, for that matter—facing barriers on the basis of gender in addition to their

immigrant status, ethnic status, and low socioeconomic status.

We recognize that census data are not an ideal source for conducting this analysis.

At best, these data provide only a hint of what is going on behind the mechanism

involving the transmission of information through ties of varying strengths. The earnings

of Mexican immigrant husbands are affected by a wide variety of factors including the

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type of occupation of their wives. Furthermore, with respect to men’s earnings based on

census data, it is not clear what portion—if any—is due to job-related leads that they

obtain from their domestica wives. The next phase of our study is to interview

domesticas to better understand this mechanism and the dynamics involved in the

attainment of information through different types of ties and how these are transmitted to

their significant others, as well as how domesticas themselves benefit from such

information. Qualitative data are much richer and appropriate for understanding the links

between weak ties, the transmission of information, and economic benefits.

Nevertheless, our study has identified the exceptionally large number of

domesticas among Mexican immigrant women. In fact, more of these women are

employed in this occupation than in any other occupation, accounting for nearly one-

tenth of all employed Mexican immigrant women in 2000. While there is a significant

literature on Mexican and Latina domesticas that has grown over the last couple of

decades, there is still a lot that we do not know about this group of workers. Even census

data, despite their shortcomings, can be used to obtain broad demographic, social, and

economic profiles of these women. Still, further research, much of this qualitatively

based, is needed to understand the mechanisms and dynamics associated with women

working in this occupation. For example, it is suggested that because domestica

employment is low-paying and low-prestige (Glantz 2005), it is particularly a source of

employment for recently arrived immigrant women and less so for immigrant women

who have been in their country of destination longer. However, our preliminary analysis

indicates that domestica employment among Mexican immigrant women actually rises

with time in the United States.

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References

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Table 1. Unstandardized Coefficients Showing the Relationship Between the Mexican Immigrant Husbands Logged Hourly Wages and the Selected Independent, Contextual, and Control Variables. ______________________________________________________________________ Selected Variables Model 1 Model 2 ______________________________________________________________________ Intercept 1.717** 1.723** Domestica Wife -0.009 -0.043* Relative Size of Mexican Population -0.002** -0.002** Domestica Wife*Relative Size of Mexican Pop. ------ 0.001* Age 25-34 -0.057** -0.058** Age 35-44 -0.015 -0.016 Age 45-54 0.021 0.020 Age 55-64 0.019 0.018 Age 65+ -0.123** -0.122** English Proficiency 0.080** 0.080** U.S. Naturalized Citizen 0.092** 0.092** Immigrated Before 1970 0.207** 0.207** Immigrated in 1970-1979 0.172** 0.172** Immigrated in 1980-1980 0.106** 0.106** Some High School Education 0.058** 0.058** Occupational Status 0.006** 0.006** Self-Employed -0.029 -0.029 Experience 0.010** 0.010** Experience2 -0.000** -0.000** Disabled 0.002 0.002 Metropolitan Residence 0.124** 0.125** Mixed Metropolitan/Nonmetropolitan Residence 0.055** 0.056** Southwest Region -0.046** 0.045** Adjusted R2 0.124 0.124 N 25,581 25,581 ______________________________________________________________________ *Statistically significant at the 0.05 level. **Statistically significant at the 0.01 level.

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Figure 1. Average Hourly Wages of Mexican Immigrant Men by Occupation of Wife and Relative Size of Mexican-Origin Population.

10.76

11.52

11.37

11.51

11.84

10.88

10.2

10.4

10.6

10.8

11

11.2

11.4

11.6

11.8

12

Below 25.0% 25.0%-49.9% 50.0% or higher

Avg

. Hou

rly W

age

Domestica WifeNon-Domestica Wife