Au pair: the women workers’ rights blind spot
The Covid crisis has highlighted the importance of care jobs. NHS workers, working in elderly care homes but also childcare providers were referred to as essential workers. However, since the UK voted to leave the EU, no clear plans for au pairs were established in the new point-based immigration scheme. According to the British Au Pair Agencies Association BAPAA, there were around 43,000 au pairs in the country before the pandemic. Now, only people who came to the UK before December 2020 and have pre-settled or settled status under the EU settlement scheme are allowed to become au pairs in the country.
If working as a nanny is recognised as a regulated job which involves being paid at least minimum wage and other work benefits such as sick pay and paid holidays, au pair on the other hand is not. Indeed, the government indicates that au pair is not recognised as a form of employment but is rather a cultural exchange. The government provides some general guidance for families who were to welcome au pairs; the Au Pair is entitled to pocket money (not a salary), which is at the discretion of the family but usually around £95 for about 25 hours to 30 hours of work per week.
I know from personal experience that the problem around the lack of regulation preceded Brexit. In August 2017, a 21-year-old au pair from France, Sophie Lionnet, was killed by her host family in London. The investigation around the murder showed that the ‘particularly shy au pair, who knew little English,’ had been suffering months if not more of abuse by her employers prior to her death. Having been an au pair myself in London around the same time as Sophie, I was expected to hear some new legislation to regulate this area of work, however, one cannot but notice that there is still nothing after 5 years.
In my research for this piece, I found several articles talking about the devasting effects the absence of post-Brexit regulation for au pairs had, but only through the point of view of au pair agencies and host families. I decided to discuss with three former au pairs in the UK, all in their early 20s – Lou, Hannah, and Maria – to have a glimpse of their experience.
I must admit that my initial expectations were biased by my own story of being an au pair in the UK however as Lou told me overall the experience of being an au pair had been a positive one for her. Looking back at her time au pairing she explains:
‘I was really fortunate because my first host family – a single mother with her young daughter – were really welcoming right away. I saw the dad also sometimes and he was French, so it was really helpful for me. I was really excited to go to London since I had never been before. I find friends right away through an English course as well, so I didn’t feel lonely; I just really loved it. I would say the most positive thing about being an au pair is that you have a lot of free time. And you live with the host family so you don’t need to have much money, you can just come there for a few months or a year and visit the country which I think is really great. After graduating from high school, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had heard my cousin talking about au pairing in the USA before, so I thought why not try the au pair experience in the UK? ‘ When asked about her overall experience Lou considers herself lucky as she tells that she heard a lot of au pair ‘horror stories’ with families, for example, asking for way more tasks or more hours than what the au pair had agreed to previously with little to no extra pay.
This seems to resonate more with the experience of Hannah, a young woman from the midlands who wanted to become an au pair to have the opportunity to discover London while earning a little bit of money.
‘Honestly, my experience as an au pair was not great, for many reasons. My daily tasks included taking care of a 10-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy, on weekdays, 8 am till 8 pm, which is obviously a long day. But not all-day Wednesdays as they were with their dad on a day out. Their 2-year-old sister was at nursery most of the day on weekdays. Well actually I’d do a little bit on Wednesdays, 2, 3 hours maybe, before and after the boys got home. And looking after the girl before and after nursery for a bit, so upwards of 48 hours…’
‘The salary was £170 per week; I though it was really good, which is the reason I felt like I couldn’t say anything about the hours.’
Hannah
Although there are no official regulations stating what counts as nanny or au pair duties, it is hard to not see how 48 hours of childcare-related tasks could be seen as a cultural exchange and not as a real form of employment.
As Lou explained: ‘The main difference between being a nanny and being an au pair is that as a nanny you have a real contract with the task and the hour you are supposed to do and a salary. You also have rights which are recognised by the government.’
Maria, a former 23-year-old au pair continues: ‘In an ideal world there would be a clear difference between live-in nanny tasks and those of an au pair because au pair is first and foremost a cultural exchange. ‘
Unfortunately too many times au pair are hired as a cheap replacement for nannies. I’ve noticed that some families were using the words au pair and nanny interchangeably. No one knows the difference.
Maria
The three young women all expressed some concern about the consequences of not being officially employed, whether it was for their safety: as Maria explained having your employment tied to your living situation and not fully mastering the language could lead to potentially dangerous situations. Talking to Lou made me also realise the precarity of the au pair situation as she pointed out how extremely difficult it could be to get settled in the country as an au pair: tasks such as opening a bank account are tedious for a foreigner without an official contract.
Something that was also mentioned was the imbalance between the host family; often wealthy British citizens; and not-so-wealthy foreign young women. Hannah recalls that she felt that her host family had treated her negatively because of her modest background: ‘I feel like they were desperate for an au pair but didn’t really see it as a respectable job.’
Finally, the three ex-au pairs were all calling for more legal and practical support for au pairs from the government. As Maria states ‘the salary seems fair when we are told that we are only going to do ‘light work’ but as soon as you start calculating how much you make per hour you realise how much the ‘pocket money is ridiculous.’
She later continues: The worst thing is that some families really are wealthy.
I have empathy for families that are struggling to afford proper traditional childcare such as single parents but surely there should be another alternative that doesn’t lead to the exploitation of young women.
Maria
Talking to these young women showed me that although the cultural experience of being an au pair could be a good one, there is a crucial need for government regulation. The new post-Brexit rules state that European citizens are permitted to visit the UK for up to six months without a visa but are not allowed to work ‘which includes working as an au pair’. Surely this means that the government recognises at a certain instance that au pair is a form of employment. As the problem is not new, I believe there is also a form of hypocrisy around the issue which does not provide an affordable and ethical alternative to childcare to modest families, at the expense of young foreign women.