Characteristics and functioning of a specific labor market: domestic service in Buenos Aires (late 19th and early 20th century)

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the characteristics and operation of the labor market organized around domestic service in the city of Buenos Aires in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. It analyses the different social, cultural and legal institutions that both gave shape to it and laid its foundations. It shows that in its creation economic rationales, cultural processes, and social practices with different logics coexisted. It also shows that its specific structure and dynamics determined to a large extent what servants could do and be, and that the specific nature of this labor market favored relations of subordination and dependence that impacted on the social structure of that society.

Keywords:
domestic service; labor market; free labor; forced labor