One result of the COVID-19 pandemic is a growing consensus that domestic work and care work are undervalued. Domestic workers perform work such as cleaning, child care, personal care, or health care for or in private households. Part of why these kinds of workers are overlooked is that much of the work occurs outside of the most regulated and documented areas of the economy. A fair share of domestic work is performed by self-employed individuals.

Self-employment is not included in our two most common measures of employment and wages, the Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics (OEWS) and Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages (QCEW) programs. Additionally, unpaid work is notoriously hard to track. Three industries that are included in the QCEW and OEWS programs – and provide a look into the world of domestic and care work – are Private Households, Child Day Care Services, and Home Health Care Services. These three industries combined for only about 1% of all covered¹ employment in Northeast Minnesota (see Table 1). Instead, a larger share of domestic workers is among the self-employed.

Some of the most common domestic and care work occupations are Home Health & Personal Care Aides, Registered Nurses, Maids & Housekeeping Cleaners, Preschool Teachers, and Childcare Workers. Childcare Workers are most likely to be self-employed. With the exception of Registered Nurses, which make up 12.4% of Home Health Care Services employment, each of the most common domestic care occupations have median wages well below the regional median of $22.54 per hour (see Table 1).

Lack of accessible and affordable child and elder care have been pointed to as some of the major reasons why workers have left the labor force over the last couple years. However, Childcare Workers and Home Health & Personal Care Aides are typically paid 60%-65% of the regional median wage. This is true even after wages grew faster than average for each of the industries in Table 1 since 2018. Wages even declined for Home Health Care Services and Private Households workers over the last year. Wages remain low despite each of the five occupations listed above being in the highest demand category according to our Occupations In Demand tool.

Given that domestic and care jobs earn far below average wages, who are the workers? First, they are overwhelmingly female. Of workers in the three industries included in Table 1, 84% were women as of 2021. At 93%, that share was the highest for Child Day Care Services. Workers in domestic and care industries are also more likely to be under 35 or over 64 years of age than for all industries. A full two-thirds of Child Day Care workers are under 35. That is almost double the share of workers across all industries. Conversely, more than 18% of Private Households employees are 65 years or older, compared to only 6% of all workers. Lastly, domestic care workers are twice as likely to be people of color than across all industries in Northeast Minnesota.

Domestic and care workers are starting to receive more recognition as we collectively awaken to the value of such work, both monetarily as well as in the ability to free up people to enter or stay in the workforce. However, this value will need to increase even more if we are going to more effectively attract and retain workers in these occupations and industries.

¹Covered by the Unemployment Insurance system.

For More Information

Contact Northeast Minnesota Labor Market Analyst Carson Gorecki at 218-302-8413.