Domestic employees and its protection from social security system: a situation still in deficit

Abstract

The current pandemic situation has demonstrated the importance of care work and other tasks in the domestic work sector, but also the fragile employment and economic situation of many of the people who work in this profession.

Almost a decade after the integration of people providing services in domestic employment into the General Scheme of the Spanish Social Security, it is a good time to take stock and, above all, to point out certain situations that still need to be improved.

It’s true that there have been substantial improvements compared to the situation prior to the 2011 reforms, but it’s embarrassing to see that some of the transitional mandates that were established to bring the rules for this sector into line with the general Social Security regulations have still not been put to an end. 

A separate issue is that ILO Convention 189 has still not been ratified, which allows this group of employees, most of whom are women, to be kept away from proper unemployment benefits. This is one of the facts that have emerged in the face of the urgency of a health crisis and its employment and economic repercussions, to the point that the Spanish government has been forced to implement an extraordinary unemployment allowance.