A perennial, never-ending topic of discussion for privileged South Africans is what constitutes a fair wage for domestic workers.

Everyone loves to talk a good game (they even have their own mugs, darling), and I’m sure you’re paying above the minimum wage (seriously, it’s the least you can do), but is what you’re paying enough to be considered a living wage?

A new website, Living Wage, gives employers the chance to see exactly that. The Citizen reports that “the site offers a calculator which allows you to see whether what you are paying would, on average, allow your domestic worker to pay monthly expenses”.

“There are 53 million domestic workers worldwide, which is almost the size of the South African population, according to the International Labour Organisation,” says information on the site, which was written by Kim Harrisberg from Code for South Africa, who created the wage calculator.

Code for South Africa is billed on its website as “a non-profit civic technology lab” which uses “data and technology to promote informed decision-making that drives social change”.

According to the site’s information, “domestic workers make up 6.8% of the employed population” in South Africa, according to the Labour Force Survey.

“With a workforce as large as this working in peoples’ homes, salaries of domestic workers should be something that South Africans know more about. And yet, to many, it is a topic that is met with aversion or discomfort when it is raised,” the site argues.

If we head to Living Wage, let’s use a hypothetical R250 per day, or a monthly wage of just under R5 500:

Click the ‘Calculate Expenses’ tab and…

Oh, you’d be paying your domestic worker just enough to be considered a living wage.

The ‘Show Assumptions’ tab is where the real learning comes in, with nine assumptions coming into play. We’ve just picked the first four below:

It might be an illuminating experience to run through each part of that equation with your domestic worker, because each of those ‘assumptions’ can be tinkered with, in order to work out what constitutes a living wage in their circumstances.

The site also offers some other information:

The site also looks at the stories of three domestic workers, offering “videos, text, and graphs” which “aim to encourage dialogue between domestic workers and employers, and to stress the validity and importance in seeing this significant part of our labour force as individuals with varying needs, and personal aspirations.”

Go on, have a click around Living Wage, and a discussion with your domestic worker, and you might learn a thing or two.

[sources:citizen&livingwage]