Minimum monthly wage for a house servant in Kenya is KES 10954.70 http://www.africapay.org/kenya/home/salary/minimum-wages. That is USD 108.34 per month, using today's exchange rate. Let me be nice and pay 20% above that, thus $130. Price of having a daily grande Starbucks latte. It is very affordable.
I grew up in Nairobi and had a house servant. Everyone in the middle class did. Even lower middle class. This enabled my dad and mum to run their own businesses. The maid would work from 0800-1630, 5 & 1/2 days. My grandparents lived with us. The maid would clean floors, do the laundry (manual handwash and line dry, iron), prep the food for my grandma to cook lunch and dinner, and any other assigned tasks. We provided a detached servant's room to one of my dad's employee, who would wash dishes and clean up after dinner 7 nights a week. He got all the leftovers, which was enough to share with the neighbor's servants.
That's how middle-class life is in developing countries. Since electricity is unreliable and expensive, you use a human for the tasks.
Back on topic, living in developing countries in Africa and Asia, our FT housekeeper, 1x/week gardener, and (when I finally broke down and hired one) FT driver made themselves indispensable, as in jinga nation's example from Kenya.
Cleaning is a constant task due to unpaved roads, long dry seasons, long rainy seasons, and dust. The washer runs constantly for the same reasons, but we lacked a power dishwasher.
Food preparation takes much longer because one must wash raw fruits & vegetables with bleach and then rinse several times.
Ferrying teenagers back and forth to activities and negotiating auto service in exotic languages took time and skills I preferred to invest elsewhere.
Deciding which plants worked best in the climate and choosing them in exotic languages also necessitated time and skills.
Total monthly cost was a very affordable $300 US, we paid more than the going rate, raised frequently, and paid overtime when we needed it.
Most expats we knew had similar domestic help arrangements. The biggest staff I remember was for a family with two long-hour-working parents and two rambunctious young (5 & 7 yo) children - they had a driver, cook, housekeeper, nanny, and FT gardener. A bit too much for my taste, but different strokes.
Now that we're in Europe, everyone pitches in on the housekeeping and gardening, and we're car-free. It's good for the teenagers to know how to fend for themselves.