Behind the careers and professional ambitions of millions of working parents is someone whose contribution often goes unnoticed: the nanny. From wealthy households in London, Brussels and New York to expatriate families in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong, nannies have become an important part of everyday life. They allow parents to pursue demanding careers while ensuring that their children receive care and attention. Yet, despite their growing importance, nannies remain largely invisible in discussions about economic growth, labour markets and public policy.
There is a clear contradiction at the heart of the global nanny industry. Modern economies increasingly rely on paid childcare to keep households and workplaces functioning, but the people providing that care often face low wages, insecure employment and inadequate legal protection. Nannying, therefore, should not be viewed simply as a private household service. It is an essential part of the global care economy, and its contribution deserves far greater recognition.
The growing demand for nannies is closely linked to changes in the way people live and work. More women are entering professional employment, dual-income households are becoming increasingly common, and the pressure to balance demanding careers with family responsibilities continues to grow. At the same time, long working hours, rising living costs and limited access to affordable public childcare have pushed many families towards private childcare arrangements. For some professional households, hiring a nanny is no longer a luxury. It has become a practical necessity.
The scale of the wider domestic work sector is considerable. According to the International Labour Organization, approximately 80 million people worldwide are employed in domestic work. Their responsibilities range from childcare and cleaning to cooking and caring for older family members. Women make up the overwhelming majority of this workforce. Their work also supports economic activity far beyond the household, allowing millions of other people to participate in paid employment.
Yet the economic value of childcare is still widely overlooked. Consider a parent who can attend meetings, accept a promotion or start a business because a nanny is looking after their children. That parent’s professional opportunities are partly made possible by someone else’s labour. Nevertheless, the economic contribution of the nanny rarely receives the same recognition as the paid work it enables.
This raises an uncomfortable but important question: why does the economic freedom of one worker so often depend on the undervalued labour of another?
One of the most striking features of the nanny industry is how deeply connected it has become to international migration. Wealthier households increasingly employ women from lower-income countries, creating employment relationships that link families and labour markets across continents. Women from the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and several African countries migrate in search of better wages and opportunities to support their families. The money they send home often pays for children’s education, housing, healthcare and other essential expenses. For many households in their countries of origin, these remittances are an important source of financial security.
This pattern is closely associated with what feminist economists call “global care chains”. The term describes how caring responsibilities move between households, countries and social classes. A woman may leave her own children in the care of relatives or another caregiver so that she can look after the children of a wealthier family abroad. In other words, while one household gains access to childcare, another must find a way to manage the absence of the person who previously provided it. The ILO has identified the growing demand for migrant care workers as an important challenge for labour migration governance, particularly because recruitment and employment in this sector remain strongly shaped by gender.
There is a difficult reality behind this arrangement. Wealthier countries benefit from the skills and labour of migrant women, while the families and communities they leave behind carry much of the emotional and social burden of their absence. The global nanny industry is therefore about more than employment or migration. It also reveals how care, opportunity and inequality are distributed across national borders.
Hiring a nanny may appear relatively affordable in some destination countries, but the price paid by employers does not always reflect the true cost of the work involved. Domestic work takes place largely within private homes, away from the public scrutiny and workplace monitoring that apply to many other occupations. This can make it difficult to identify poor working conditions or ensure that employment rights are respected.
The ILO’s global assessment found that 81 per cent of domestic workers were informally employed, leaving many without adequate labour and social protection. More recent estimates suggest that the problem remains widespread, with approximately 83.1 per cent of domestic workers affected by informality. For nannies, this can mean working long hours without additional pay, having little time off, living in insecure accommodation or facing dismissal without proper notice. The situation can be particularly difficult for live-in nannies, whose workplace is also their home. When an employee lives with the family, the distinction between working hours and personal time can easily disappear.
The issue is not that families employ nannies. Childcare is valuable work that requires patience, responsibility, experience and considerable emotional commitment. The real concern is that the benefits families receive from this work are not always matched by fair wages, reasonable working conditions and adequate legal protection. It is difficult to celebrate professional success and economic independence while overlooking the rights of the people whose work makes both possible.
The nanny industry also highlights a much wider problem: the unequal distribution of care work between women and men. Across the world, women continue to perform most unpaid domestic and caregiving responsibilities. Even when this work becomes paid employment, it is still largely carried out by women and is often poorly valued.
According to UNDP, women perform more than three-quarters of unpaid domestic and care work globally. This imbalance affects their ability to enter paid employment, develop careers and achieve financial independence. Employing a nanny can help address some of these pressures. It allows parents, particularly professional women, to devote more time to their careers while ensuring that their children are cared for. However, this arrangement does not necessarily challenge the deeper inequalities that created the problem in the first place.
In many cases, it simply shifts the responsibility from one woman to another. An affluent professional woman may gain greater freedom to pursue her career because a lower-paid migrant woman takes responsibility for childcare and domestic duties. The result is not necessarily a fairer distribution of care between men and women. Instead, existing inequalities are transferred between women of different economic backgrounds, nationalities and social positions.
This is an important distinction. The nanny industry can create opportunities for some women while leaving others in vulnerable employment. It can improve economic independence within one household without necessarily addressing the wider gender inequalities within society. For this reason, nannying should be considered an issue of economic and social justice, not simply a matter of household convenience.
Improving conditions in the global nanny industry requires a change in how governments, employers and societies think about domestic and care work. Recognising the importance of childcare is a starting point, but that recognition must translate into practical protections.
The global nanny industry reveals something important about the way modern economies function. Behind the success of many households and the professional achievements of millions of workers is a largely invisible workforce providing the care that makes those achievements possible. It also raises difficult questions about globalisation. Who benefits most from the movement of labour across borders? Who carries the emotional and social costs? And why does work that is so essential to everyday economic life continue to receive so little recognition?
The answer is not to discourage families from employing nannies or to minimise the value of their work. Rather, it is to recognise childcare as essential economic infrastructure and ensure that the people providing it are treated fairly. Economic progress should not be measured only by productivity, employment figures or the professional success of working parents. It should also be measured by the quality of life and working conditions of those who make that success possible.
Ultimately, the question is not simply who looks after the world’s children. It is who looks after the people who look after them. Until that question receives serious attention from employers, governments and policymakers, the global nanny industry will continue to reflect a troubling reality: the prosperity of some is often built on the invisible and undervalued labour of others.
