Domestic for life? Peruvian women in the Barcelona domestic help sector

Abstract

Those Peruvian women who arrive to Barcelona during the nineties work mainly as domestic helpers, though they did not use to do that job in their country of origin and have medium and high levels of education. The reasons for migrating, the way how is done and the context of arrival determine their labour market insertion. However, the project which was initially planned as temporary becomes often permanent because it is continually prolonged. Therefore, it is obvious that, on one hand, there is a perpetuation of Peruvian women in the domestic service and, on the other hand, an ethnification of the sector, composed now to a large extend by women from specific foreign origins. Both facts occur under the transnational migratory phenomenon, having a diverse impact on migrant women and their families.