6 ms·

I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of

by t1234s 3mo ago

I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.

Eddy_Viscosity2 3mo ago
>$12 USD a day which is not a bad deal For the owner or the servant?
- t1234s 3mo ago
  probably for both.. don't forget it includes an air conditioned place to live, food and internet plus a salary. In exchange they take care of domestic needs (cooking, shopping, house keeping)
elygre 3mo ago
Not a bad deal for who?
- pelagicAustral 3mo ago
  This used to be quite common in Chile as well. I don't think it's that prevalent anymore, but it was very interesting to see the synergy some families built after decades of cohabiting with a "service person" (don't really know what word to use). I met a lot of people that widely regarded their service lady as a mother, they were pretty much raised with them around, so the bonds run deep. I have no doubt some times the compensation might not exactly be the best, but I have met quite a lot of people that are well happy with this arrangement.
forinti 3mo ago
If you pay minimum wage (about US$300) it would be about that per working day. Increasingly, cleaners are working per diem because they earn a lot more (about US$40 a day, but this varies a lot by region). The downside is that they get no benefits.
wahern 3mo ago
This is true in Singapore and Malaysia, as well, where Filipino or Indonesian cooks and housekeepers are extremely common, as are separate entrances--typically into the kitchen. In Malaysia there's an odd situation, the reverse of the dynamic in the US, where Indonesian servant immigration is encouraged as a way to grow the Muslim population and help diminish the political power of Chinese-Malaysians and Indian-Malaysians.
- noisy_boy 3mo ago
  > This is true in Singapore and Malaysia, as well, where Filipino or Indonesian cooks and housekeepers are extremely common, as are separate entrances--typically into the kitchen. Live in housekeepers are very common indeed in Singapore. However, majority of Singapore lives in Housing Development Board flats that do not have any separate entrance into kitchen.
ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago
I grew up with servants (in Subsaharan Africa and Morocco). However, they were paid (I have no idea whether it was a good wage, or not), and had pretty decent quarters (in Morocco). My parents were pretty kind, fairly liberal, people. I would be quite surprised (and shocked) if they took advantage of the servants. I know that my mother made damn sure that I had respect for poor folks.
- mc32 3mo ago
  Those things are a symptom of an undeveloped economy. It harkens back to a time of less development where there were more hands than jobs and much of the labor was manual. Not to excuse the practice in modern times but go back a few generations and that was the reality of the world -everywhere.
Laurel1234 3mo ago
It's a symptom of inequality. It will start happening more and more even in the first world if inequality isn't tackled and wealth continues to concentrate.
- argentinian 3mo ago
  Why do you see inequality as the problem, instead of poverty?
  - oblio 3mo ago
    Because they go together. The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere. The hallmark of developing or underdeveloped countries is precisely the staggering levels of inequality. Not everyone is poor in a developing/underdeveloped country. Quite a few people there live lives that would make upper middle classes in developed countries blush. Life "just" sucks for the majority of people there.
    - argentinian 3mo ago
      Correlation is not causation. Would you say USA is a developed country, considering for example Los Angeles slums? And there's a bigger inequality between Elon musk and a well paid software developer than between a poor person in a developing country and a rich politician from that country.
      - oblio 3mo ago
        > Would you say USA is a developed country I'm not saying anything (directly). We have definitions for these things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country According to any way we currently categorize developed countries, the US is one of them.
        argentinian 3mo ago
        Acording to what you say: - "The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere." - "they go together" (poverty and inequality). - The US is a developed country. - The US has a great wealth inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we... What you say implies contradictions.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
55555 3mo ago
The median income in brazil is 10X lower than USA. So $12 a day -> $120 a day. That's similar to what someone in the US at the bottom of the economic ladder might earn. We have the same thing, it's just that Americans want to have servants but don't want to see them, so there's an app barrier between you and the poor. Someone cooks your food, someone else delivers your food, someone cleans your hotel room, but Americans prefer not to have to ever learn their names or talk to them. Is that really better? Unlike when you use an app, for the most part, because we're not psychopaths, living with someone every day for months or years causes us to feel a great affinity and care towards them. I live in a developing country. Some people treat their live-in staff badly. But for many others, this is not the case. Imagine you are a high-earner and hard worker and so you and your wife get a live-in nanny to assist with childrearing duties. Often, two or three decades later, the live-in nanny is ready to retire, but your children (whom you love) have come to see her as a member of the family, or even as a second mother. Surely you also do. How can you live with someone for 20-30 years and not care about them? You might thus often take care of her for the rest of her life, even though she has her own savings. (No, I do not have live-in house staff. But I've had the same maid for 7 years and she knows she can come to me if she needs anything.) How one treats someone else is probably mostly just a reflection of the individual. But it's harder to disregard someone's humanity when they live in your house and you've know them for years.
- ricardobeat 3mo ago
  This is probably the same line of thought the families involved in the story have had. Yet, the end result is still quite similar to slavery. Why do you suppose the servants stay, instead of living a life of their own? I think you’ll find the answer there.
  - carlosjobim 3mo ago
    I'd say certainly not. The key aspect of the story is that the woman entered in service of the family as a very young child. That makes all the difference.
  - therealpygon 3mo ago
mc32 3mo ago
The practice of live-in maids has been somewhat common throughout the world up until WWI and into WWII. Well-to-do families would taken in boys and girls from poor families and use them for house and yard work. It wasn’t slavery, or even indentured servitudes, but it did take opportunity of their misfortune. Aristocrats and well to dos would take girls and boys mostly from the less educated countryside or from war-torn areas of the rest of Europe and use them as cheap labor. Some would stay on and some would go off to seek better future outside those families. It was somewhat symbiotic the poor kids (and their families) needed the money and the wealthy could show off they had money to spend on domestic help.
matheusmoreira 3mo ago
I am a brazilian doctor. Yeah, richer people are very likely to hire staff to manage their homes. It's not a rule, but it's not rare for them to live in the house they work at. This is common enough to show up as a trope in popular telenovelas. I've yet to uncover a case of literal slavery like TFA though. One could argue the workers aren't getting paid enough and I'd agree, but the workers are getting paid.
- brazukadev 3mo ago
  It is very common for the worker to not get paid. A place to sleep and food is not payment, enslaved people also got it.
  - matheusmoreira 3mo ago
    "Very common" ? No. You make it sound like you can find literally enslaved people in random brazilian households.
    - brazukadev 3mo ago
      Not anymore, since the 2002 this changed and it wasn't easy. It was very, very common before that tho. We shouldn't forget so to not repeat.

by t1234s 3mo ago

Eddy_Viscosity2 3mo ago

>$12 USD a day which is not a bad deal For the owner or the servant?

t1234s 3mo ago
probably for both.. don't forget it includes an air conditioned place to live, food and internet plus a salary. In exchange they take care of domestic needs (cooking, shopping, house keeping)

elygre 3mo ago

Not a bad deal for who?

pelagicAustral 3mo ago
This used to be quite common in Chile as well. I don't think it's that prevalent anymore, but it was very interesting to see the synergy some families built after decades of cohabiting with a "service person" (don't really know what word to use). I met a lot of people that widely regarded their service lady as a mother, they were pretty much raised with them around, so the bonds run deep. I have no doubt some times the compensation might not exactly be the best, but I have met quite a lot of people that are well happy with this arrangement.

forinti 3mo ago

If you pay minimum wage (about US$300) it would be about that per working day. Increasingly, cleaners are working per diem because they earn a lot more (about US$40 a day, but this varies a lot by region). The downside is that they get no benefits.

wahern 3mo ago

This is true in Singapore and Malaysia, as well, where Filipino or Indonesian cooks and housekeepers are extremely common, as are separate entrances--typically into the kitchen. In Malaysia there's an odd situation, the reverse of the dynamic in the US, where Indonesian servant immigration is encouraged as a way to grow the Muslim population and help diminish the political power of Chinese-Malaysians and Indian-Malaysians.

noisy_boy 3mo ago
> This is true in Singapore and Malaysia, as well, where Filipino or Indonesian cooks and housekeepers are extremely common, as are separate entrances--typically into the kitchen. Live in housekeepers are very common indeed in Singapore. However, majority of Singapore lives in Housing Development Board flats that do not have any separate entrance into kitchen.

ChrisMarshallNY 3mo ago

I grew up with servants (in Subsaharan Africa and Morocco). However, they were paid (I have no idea whether it was a good wage, or not), and had pretty decent quarters (in Morocco). My parents were pretty kind, fairly liberal, people. I would be quite surprised (and shocked) if they took advantage of the servants. I know that my mother made damn sure that I had respect for poor folks.

mc32 3mo ago
Those things are a symptom of an undeveloped economy. It harkens back to a time of less development where there were more hands than jobs and much of the labor was manual. Not to excuse the practice in modern times but go back a few generations and that was the reality of the world -everywhere.

Laurel1234 3mo ago

It's a symptom of inequality. It will start happening more and more even in the first world if inequality isn't tackled and wealth continues to concentrate.

argentinian 3mo ago
Why do you see inequality as the problem, instead of poverty?
- oblio 3mo ago
  Because they go together. The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere. The hallmark of developing or underdeveloped countries is precisely the staggering levels of inequality. Not everyone is poor in a developing/underdeveloped country. Quite a few people there live lives that would make upper middle classes in developed countries blush. Life "just" sucks for the majority of people there.
  - argentinian 3mo ago
    Correlation is not causation. Would you say USA is a developed country, considering for example Los Angeles slums? And there's a bigger inequality between Elon musk and a well paid software developer than between a poor person in a developing country and a rich politician from that country.
    - oblio 3mo ago
      > Would you say USA is a developed country I'm not saying anything (directly). We have definitions for these things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country According to any way we currently categorize developed countries, the US is one of them.
      - argentinian 3mo ago
        Acording to what you say: - "The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere." - "they go together" (poverty and inequality). - The US is a developed country. - The US has a great wealth inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we... What you say implies contradictions.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

55555 3mo ago

The median income in brazil is 10X lower than USA. So $12 a day -> $120 a day. That's similar to what someone in the US at the bottom of the economic ladder might earn. We have the same thing, it's just that Americans want to have servants but don't want to see them, so there's an app barrier between you and the poor. Someone cooks your food, someone else delivers your food, someone cleans your hotel room, but Americans prefer not to have to ever learn their names or talk to them. Is that really better? Unlike when you use an app, for the most part, because we're not psychopaths, living with someone every day for months or years causes us to feel a great affinity and care towards them. I live in a developing country. Some people treat their live-in staff badly. But for many others, this is not the case. Imagine you are a high-earner and hard worker and so you and your wife get a live-in nanny to assist with childrearing duties. Often, two or three decades later, the live-in nanny is ready to retire, but your children (whom you love) have come to see her as a member of the family, or even as a second mother. Surely you also do. How can you live with someone for 20-30 years and not care about them? You might thus often take care of her for the rest of her life, even though she has her own savings. (No, I do not have live-in house staff. But I've had the same maid for 7 years and she knows she can come to me if she needs anything.) How one treats someone else is probably mostly just a reflection of the individual. But it's harder to disregard someone's humanity when they live in your house and you've know them for years.

ricardobeat 3mo ago
This is probably the same line of thought the families involved in the story have had. Yet, the end result is still quite similar to slavery. Why do you suppose the servants stay, instead of living a life of their own? I think you’ll find the answer there.
- carlosjobim 3mo ago
  I'd say certainly not. The key aspect of the story is that the woman entered in service of the family as a very young child. That makes all the difference.
- therealpygon 3mo ago

mc32 3mo ago

The practice of live-in maids has been somewhat common throughout the world up until WWI and into WWII. Well-to-do families would taken in boys and girls from poor families and use them for house and yard work. It wasn’t slavery, or even indentured servitudes, but it did take opportunity of their misfortune. Aristocrats and well to dos would take girls and boys mostly from the less educated countryside or from war-torn areas of the rest of Europe and use them as cheap labor. Some would stay on and some would go off to seek better future outside those families. It was somewhat symbiotic the poor kids (and their families) needed the money and the wealthy could show off they had money to spend on domestic help.

matheusmoreira 3mo ago

I am a brazilian doctor. Yeah, richer people are very likely to hire staff to manage their homes. It's not a rule, but it's not rare for them to live in the house they work at. This is common enough to show up as a trope in popular telenovelas. I've yet to uncover a case of literal slavery like TFA though. One could argue the workers aren't getting paid enough and I'd agree, but the workers are getting paid.

brazukadev 3mo ago
It is very common for the worker to not get paid. A place to sleep and food is not payment, enslaved people also got it.
- matheusmoreira 3mo ago
  "Very common" ? No. You make it sound like you can find literally enslaved people in random brazilian households.
  - brazukadev 3mo ago
    Not anymore, since the 2002 this changed and it wasn't easy. It was very, very common before that tho. We shouldn't forget so to not repeat.