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It's not like Indians aren't picky about who they let into their houses, though. Cross-cultural labor market comparisons are always tricky, but unemployment in
by scarmig 14y ago
It's not like Indians aren't picky about who they let into their houses, though. Cross-cultural labor market comparisons are always tricky, but unemployment in India is currently higher than unemployment in the USA (source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2129.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... ).
Ignoring frictions, you expect that even the worst of those employed as live-in maids, cooks, or servants are probably comparable to the best of the 10% of Indians currently unemployed. And the burgeoning Indian middle class has collectively decided that those currently unemployed Indians are too expensive to employ as help (or anything else). So they don't get employed.
As labor becomes more and more capital reliant, management costs are going to increase. At some point those management costs will exceed the costs of substituting labor with capital. That labor will then be replaced with capital. And just as companies have to be effectively bribed to employ the mentally retarded today, there's a class growing ever larger whose cost of employment exceeds the amount of value they generate.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoThe thing about India is that they are not underutilizing labor. You don't walk around and think "if only they had a human doing XXX, life would be so much easier". Whenever you find a job that could easily be done by an unskilled human, it is being done. Most middle class people have a maid, a cook, and a driver if they have a car. In contrast, there are plenty of jobs in the US that could be profitably done by a human at $9.25/hour - domestic services are just one example. This begs the question - why don't unemployed Americans fill these jobs like Indians do?
- its-a-trappist 14y agoBecause Americans, by-and-large, are comfortable (or at least accustomed to) doing these things for themselves. Most of us wouldn't want a driver or maid or a cook. Some of this reluctance comes from our cultural self image (egalitarian, self-sufficient). Some of it comes from the structural and legal complexities of employment. Finding somebody you would trust to have in your home is difficult. The paperwork involved for payroll and taxes can be complex and time consuming. Above all, domestic service just doesn't add enough value to make it worthwhile. I can drive my own car, cook my own meals and clean my own house, all without it seeming like an undue burden. The situation is probably different for a family with two career-oriented parents and school-aged children. But it's unlikely that displaced factory workers have the skills and temperament necessary to take up work as an au pere. Perhaps most importantly, it seems like a huge step backwards to re-establish a menial serving class.