This report provides a benchmark for the situation of domestic workers across the world against which progress in implementing the new instruments can be measured. In its first part, it takes stock of global and regional statistics on domestic workers to answer two fairly basic, yet fundamental questions: How many domestic workers are there? How has their number evolved over time? To arrive at some answers, it starts by defining domestic workers in statistical terms and identifies measurement issues that are likely to create a downward bias in global and regional statistics (see Chapter 2). It then presents new ILO estimates on the number of domestic workers across the world, totalling at least 52.6 million men and women across the world in 2010. This represents an increase of more than 19 million since the mid-1990s. Most strikingly, domestic work accounts for 7.5 per cent of women’s wage employment world-wide, and a far greater share in some regions.