The socio-economic role of domestic service as a factor of European identity - SERVANT

It was long expected that domestic service would disappear, that technological progress would eliminate it. Today, recourse to domestic help is still frequent. Their number is perhaps even increasing, due a wide range of reasons: current changes in labour organisation, including women's increasing presence in the labour market, increasing number of people living alone requiring domestic help, especially the elderly, growing immigration to EC from less favoured areas. Interest already exists in the European servant population of the past. This population represented about a fourth of the young generation, and about 10% of total population. Servants were the most mobile element and were major actors in changing mentalities. Creating development models for such a social group would not only shed new light on European social change in past centuries, but would also offer long term interpretation schemes to better understand the present. We hope to shed new light on changes in: precarious labour contracts, welfare state, differentiating family patterns, models of migration and urbanisation. We also hope to provide a better comprehension of ongoing European social and economic dynamics. Expected results include data and a proposal for modelisation within a historical perspective of segments of generations, as concerned today as in the past with the issues of migration, integration, globalisation of the international labour market. The present project will compare the economic, social and cultural roles of domestic service in varius EC countries, with regard to differences due to different historical traditions, welfare and migration policies.