Framing the Feminised Home-Based Services Sector at European Level: the Evolving Role of Trade Unions and Employer’s Organisations

Home services − in which working-class women make up the majority of the workforce − arrived on the European agenda in the 1990s. Since then, the attention of European institutions has focused on two main issues: labour market participation and workers’ and human rights. What has been the role of workers’ and employers’ representatives in the emergence and shaping at European level of this new area of focus? This article shows that national and European business/employers’ federations cooperated with the European Commission to frame home service work as a means of increasing employment rates but that alternative policy frames for home-based services also appeared. The activities of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) contributed to bringing frames that had developed in parallel to converge at European level.