A bit of background: I live in China where it is common for expats and wealthier local chinese to hire household help (called an ayi) to take care of the cooking, cleaning, and sometimes childcare.
One of my colleagues was lamenting about the going rates for household help, which is about 6000-8000 RMB (~$1000-$1250 USD) per month, depending on the duties. What made it a bit ridiculous was not the fact that she had an ayi, but the fact that she used to have THREE ayis and had to gradually let two of them go over time. Can you imagine? USD $36K annually for household help?
I mean, I can maybe understand if they have ten kids and both sets of grandparents living with them, but they are a family of four, living in a four bedroom house. She was also worried because her house wasn’t big enough to house her family, the ayi, and guests.
THREE ayis? What did these women do all day? Are they just a status symbol for wealthy people?
One ayi for each child, and one ayi for the cooking and cleaning. I also forgot to mention the driver.
I used to have an Indian colleague who was a programmer and he was leading a group of programmers when living in India. He also had a wife and a child. At home in India he hired a girl to wipe the floor every day. And he had another girl for cooking dinner. He honestly thought he was doing both girls a favor by providing them an income.
We others (Norwegian and Swedish people) were quite baffled to hear that someone at "our level" could afford 2 servants.
I've read before that (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) in India the wealthy are expected to hire people for these tasks as a way to distribute their wealth back into wider society. It would be considered selfish and greedy NOT to hire help in the form of those less fortunate, as you're keeping your money and not helping others by providing a steady wage when you have the means.
I grew up in an East African country. We had a house servant (ayah if female, don't remember the male version name, maybe just servant) and a driver. Here's why:
My grandparents, born in the 1920s, were the first generation I believe, to have a house servant. This enabled my grandmother to have a job, she is proud to say she was one of the first women in her coastal city to drive a 3-speed manual pickup truck. The servant came only half-day, cleaned up the 2 bed flat, did the laundry. Servant labor was very cheap for gramps who was a shipping clerk. I think the practice of servants came from the British colonialists.
At first, my parents had only a servant. He/she would walk me and sibling to school, starting at age 3, and collect us after school. Servant/ayah's job was to sweep/mop floors, laundry, prep the food, other odd jobs. My mum was a librarian, and dad commuted to his manager job in a factory 45-60 minutes away. This was the 80s. Then dad started his own business with a cousin, worked longer hours, and traffic in the city started getting worse. My mum had a horrible accident (she was ok) and got the fear of driving. Grandparents moved in with us (old age). Dad hired a driver who would drive him to work while he worked, why sit idle in traffic. Then driver would come home, take mum to work. Then just chill for a few hours, pick up mum in the early afternoon, drop her off, go fetch dad. So driver worked 7:30am-4:30pm. Again, cost of hiring a driver was cheap.
In that country, house servants and drivers are official labor categories, with minimum wages. The more you pay, the better the labor you get. Some folks provide servants and drivers with cellphones (PAYG plans are the norm), national health insurance and social security, and education benefits for their children. This is what my dad and his extended family used to do, uplift the working class. My dad would pay for the post-secondary education of the children of the servants, drivers, and employees.
First-worlders are amazed that there are servant categories in the 3rd world. Expats got a culture shock. But what you didn't have was machinery in the home like a dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, coffee maker. Homes had small refrigerators, which necessitated purchasing milk, eggs, bread, produce in small quantities every couple of days. Hawkers came to your home to sell produce so it was always fresh and in season. Also, openly recruiting your friend's servant was normal. Or asking them if they had a sibling who would like to work.
My high school friends in the old country still have a servant and some have a driver. It enables a two-income household. That city has become very expensive to live in. It is a fact that it is cheaper to live in Florida than to live in the largest city in E. Africa.