Ｐｒｏｓ ａｎｄ Ｃｏｎｓ ｏｆ Ｈｏｍｅ Ｈｅｌｐ

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SHEN Shulan earns RMB 2,400 (US $320) per month, hourly-paid, as home help in two Beijing households. This sounds modest, but compares favorably to the RMB 300 (US $40) she earned in the year 2000 when she first started this type of work.

The average wage for domestic help has risen four to five times since 2000. A skilled home helper can now expect to earn no less than RMB 1,500 per month. But the household sector of Chinas service industry is getting off to a slow start, according to Li Dajing, head of the Beijing Homemaking Association. As Li says, “Finding suitable home help is not easy, despite the relatively high wages it pays.”

Home Help Finishing School

Shen Shulans US expatriate employer obviously places great value on Shens impeccable services. She helped both Shens husband and brother to find work in Beijing, and has also promised to pay her undergraduate daughters tuition fees. In the time Shen, 42, has worked as home help, the influence of her employers well-to-do lifestyle has undoubtedly smoothed away her rough rural edges. Ready access to instant hot water – an unheard of luxury in the countryside – allows her to pay more attention to personal grooming.

Shens financial responsibilities are onerous. She must foot her elderly relations medical expenses as well as her daughters tuition fees. The income generated by the familys ten-mu (1.64 acre) farm falls far short of that needed to make ends meet, never mind cover health and education. Shens employer was instrumental in helping her husband and brother find work in Beijing in 2002. As Shen says, “Their monthly wages here are far more than what they can earn in a whole year at home.”

Home helps at the Beijing Ainong Homemaking Service Company confirm that their decision to leave the countryside and work in the city was motivated by the relatively high income the work promised. They also acknowledge that life in an urban environment has taught them a lot. Shen, for example, has learned from her employer how to use cosmetics, shop for medium-priced but tasteful clothes and use household electrical appliances seldom seen in the countryside.

Li Tong of the Ainong Homemaking Service Company training center confirms that training prospective home helps fresh from the countryside in points of urban etiquette is an integral aspect of their service.

Wanted: Reliability and Competence

Shen Shulan is a conscientious worker, skilled in housekeeping and childcare. She is also an excellent cook. Her thoughtful attention to the needs of each family member has made her an indispensable member of the household.

Required standards of housekeeping continue to rise in tandem with Chinas living conditions. A survey released by the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau shows that 11 percent of households in Beijing hired nannies in 2005; also that the rate of satisfaction with them was less than 50 percent. Many people are willing to pay more for experienced home help. But experienced, capable workers such as Shen Shulan account for just three percent of household workers seeking employment in Beijing, according to the survey. The main problem is that employers make no allowances for the time their rural-resident home helps need to adapt to urban life.

As half of the home helps registered with Ainong have received only primary education, they undergo a 12-point training program. But this gives only primary guidance. As Li Tong points out, “Every worker needs a transition period. But those that successfully weather changes in lifestyle and social mores while successfully catering to the needs of their employers are regarded as worth their weight in gold.”

Guangzhou is the largest employer of domestic help. One of the most popular programs on the local television station is a weekly quiz geared to helping householders find the home help of their dreams. The audience floods onto the stage at the end of each program in a scramble to snaffle the best contenders.

Hiring domestic help has become the trend among Chinas growing middle class. A high disposable income allows them to make service quality rather than cheap labor their main priority. One Ainong client offered an annual salary of RMB 30,000 (US $4,000) for a university graduate home helper. She received few responses, owing to the works lack of advancement prospects.

Spring Festival (Lunar New Year) is a particular thorn in the side of urban households employing rural home help. It is the time of year when people return home for family reunions. This age-old tradition plunges urban households into domestic chaos over this festive period. Home helps that agree to stay in town at this time stand to earn twice their normal monthly salary. The majority nevertheless makes the journey home. This is a major headache for household service companies such as Ainong.

Discrimination

University graduates remain unmoved by the ever-higher wages offered for housekeeping services. At the other end of the scale, laid-off workers from national enterprises also prefer unemployment to working as domestic help. This phenomenon is attributable to the low status, unskilled nature of domestic work. Sixty-seven percent of home helps interviewed by the Beijing Homemaking Association admitted to feelings of social inferiority.

Li Tong, however, is keen to point out that efficient housekeeping requires economic sense and understanding of the concept of time and motion, as well as a limitless supply of elbow grease. This is why competent home helps are so difficult to find. The Ainong Company stresses to its workers that mastering the skills necessary to run a ship-shape household pays undreamt of dividends. Shen Shulan is a case in point.

But housekeeping service companies offer no fringe benefits, such as medical insurance, to their employees. It is also difficult for women over the age of 50 to get taken on. As Shen Shulan says, “When I think about the future I wonder whether Ill be able to afford a home help in my old age.”