Over the last few years, studies on domestic work in India have noted the increase in the numbers of migrant female domestic workers in the cities. They have also observed that domestic work is highly informal in its organisation and highlighted the vulnerabilities of domestic workers1 who belong to the poorer and uneducated sections of society. These studies also note that women from marginalised castes form a substantive group of domestic workers (Kaur 2006; Neetha 2004 and 2008). Domestic workers, in particular women domestic workers, are a constantly growing section of workers in the informal sector of urban India. The last three decades have seen a sharp increase in their numbers, especially in contrast to male domestic workers (Neetha 2004). Research has shown that till 2000, the urban workforce participation of women in India has been lower than those of rural women. Marginal increases were observed in 2000-04 (Rustagi 2009). In 2004, the figure of national urban female workforce participation reached an all-time high of 16 percent.2 In 2004-05, there were 3.05 million women domestic workers in urban India marking an increase by 222 percent from 1999-2000 (Chandrashekhar and Ghosh 2007).
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