Domestic Workers and Social Insurance

Work in progress

Mexico’s 2019 reform opened enrollment in the national social security system (IMSS) to two million domestic workers, overwhelmingly women, through a voluntary pilot meant as a bridge to a mandate. This project measures how much of the coverage gap voluntary enrollment actually closed.

Work in progress

Voluntary enrollment is the standard first step toward a mandatory regime for workers who are hard to reach. This project asks how much of the gap it actually closes.

What the project does

Domestic workers provide essential services for private households, yet they rarely have access to labor rights and protections and show one of the highest informality rates in the economy. Mexico has roughly two million domestic workers, with sharp occupational segregation by gender: more than 90% are women.

I study the 2019 change in Mexican federal labor law that extended access to social insurance benefits to domestic workers. The reform came with a voluntary enrollment pilot intended as a transition toward a mandatory regime. I use the quarterly labor force survey to trace its effect on observed labor outcomes.

Why it matters for policy

Mandating coverage for workers whose employer is a household raises enforcement problems that do not arise inside firms. Whether a voluntary pilot builds enough take-up to make a mandate feasible is the practical question facing IMSS, and the answer carries over to other occupations with atomized employers.

• Draft available on request