domestic service

domestic service extract from Britannica Online.

Employment of hired workers by private households for tasks including housecleaning, cooking, child care, gardening, and personal service. It also includes the performance of similar tasks for hire in public institutions and businesses, including hotels and boardinghouses. In ancient Greece and Rome domestic service was performed almost exclusively by slaves. In medieval Europe serfs provided much of the necessary labour force. Indentured servants were widely used in colonial America, as were black slaves in the pre-Civil War South. In Victorian England many middle- and upper-class households hired domestic servants; the royalty and gentry often employed huge staffs with an elaborate hierarchy. Domestic service has declined in the U.S. and Europe since the early 1920s, a trend attributed to the leveling of social classes, greater job opportunities for women, and the spread of labour-saving household devices.

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