ILO brief puts the world's domestic workers at 80 million and informality among them at 83.1 per cent

27 October 2026

The International Labour Organization has published a statistical brief titled The state of domestic work in 2025: 15 years after Convention No. 189. It estimates 80.0 million domestic workers aged 15 and over in the world, up from 75.6 million in 2019, making up 2.2 per cent of total employment and 4.4 per cent of employees. Women are 77.2 per cent of domestic workers. The informality rate is 83.1 per cent, or 66.5 million workers, which is 5.1 million more than in 2019, although informality fell or held steady in 91 of the 140 countries with comparable data. Asia and the Pacific accounts for 40.2 million domestic workers, about half the global total, and Africa has an informality rate of 93.3 per cent. Domestic workers earn 53.3 per cent of the average monthly wage of other employees, down from 56.4 per cent in 2019, with women domestic workers at 48 per cent and men at 65.8 per cent. More than a third, 35.2 per cent, work at least 49 hours a week.