The Role of Trust and Social Norms in the Exchange Relationship between Households and Providers of Domestic Work Services

The German social security system is facing a funding crisis, which can be mitigated by expanding individual labor force participation. Domestic work services can help to enhance labor force participation by lowering the temporal scope of family obligations and therefore, freeing up time for employment. Furthermore, an increased use of domestic work services creates jobs, which benefits the social security system by raising social security contributions. Thus, domestic work services provide individual as well societal benefits. Nevertheless, these services are rarely used in Germany. Previous research has focused on the actual use of domestic work services. By using factorial survey experiments, this dissertation makes two major contributions. First, a better understanding of individuals who do not already use these services is provided. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes whether the negative effect of respondents’ general trust on the use of domestic work services is reduced if respondents are given options of controlling the service provider. Second, social norms can be investigated. In contrast to individual attitudes towards the use of domestic work services, social norms that influence the decision to use these services have received less attention. This dissertation reflects an economic sociological perspective, which understands the use of domestic work services as an uncertain exchange relationship between households and providers of domestic work services. The realization of the exchange relationship requires a reduction of uncertainty und supportive social norms, which are the focus of this dissertation’s research. Chapter 1 starts with emphasizing the social and scientific contribution of this dissertation. The following three chapters present the dissertation’s research. Chapter 2 investigates how respondents’ trust and income affect their acceptance of a fictitious domestic worker, as well as how these effects are moderated by options of controlling the domestic worker. Results of the experimental design, which used a German and a British sample, show that low trust and income have a negative effect on the acceptance of the fictitious domestic worker. However, these effects are reduced significantly when respondents are given options of controlling the service provider by physically being present in the fictitious situations. The findings indicate that control options can reduce uncertainty in the exchange relationship between households and providers of domestic work services. As a result, increased control options may lead to increased use of domestic work services. Chapter 3 deals with the assumption that the realization of the exchange relationship between households and providers of domestic work services is influenced by social norms, which have an impact on the individual decision of using such services. It is investigated how gender norms based on ‘traditional’ gender role expectations and performance-based fairness norms affect respondents’ acceptance of others outsourcing domestic work to service providers. Results of a German sample show gender differences concerning the fictitious part-time working women in the experiment. Respondents concede a smaller amount of outsourcing compared to the fictitious men if the fictitious person who wants to outsource domestic work is a female part-time worker. Performance-based fairness norms appear to be stronger in terms of full-time workers where no effects of gender are found. As a result, female relief of domestic work through the use of services is socially stronger supported for full-time working women, whereas gender norms have a negative effect on the social acceptance for part-time working women. Because part-time working women are already a vulnerable group due to the precarious employment characteristics, gender norms influencing the realization of the exchange relationship between households and service providers might contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities. Chapter 4 analyzes the social tolerance for the evasion of the value-added tax when using domestic work services, with an emphasis on the role of fairness norms. It is based on the idea that the use of domestic work services would be higher if there were no conflict between individual benefits of tax evasion and a strong social norm against tax evasion. The experiment with a German sample shows that tax evasion has a low social tolerance. The tolerance is particularly low when the fictitious tax evaders have less need for monetary relief due to a high income, when the amount of tax evasion is large and when the fictitious tax evaders could evade taxes on a regular basis. The latter factors represent a breach of the social obligation to pay the value-added tax, which respondents consider ‘unfair’ in terms of equal treatment. The results point to a tension between the individual benefits of tax evasion and a social norm that may impede the realization of the exchange relationship between households and providers of domestic work services. The economic sociological perspective in this dissertation makes a scientific contribution by gaining a deeper understanding of the influence of uncertainty reduction in the exchange relationship between households and providers of domestic work services, as well as social norms that influence the realization of this exchange. Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation by summarizing the research, reflecting methodical limitations and deriving political implications. These, and other evidence-based strategies, may lead to an increase in the use of domestic work services and hence to an increase in individual labor force participation. The use of these labor force potentials, as well as the jobs created in the service sector, help to stabilize the German social security system.