Although outsourcing of domestic work in the United Kingdom has been steadily increasing since the 1970s, very little research has focused on the experiences of white British women working as cleaners today, as opposed to the increasing interest in Indian domestic workers seen in the past decade. Most recent research primarily focuses on migrant domestic workers living and working in London, a region that is not representative of the wider United Kingdom. The Social Context of Outsource Domestic Cleaning argues that in the modern urban context, outsourced domestic cleaning can be done either as work (defined by the use of mental skills) or as labor (defined mainly by exertions and manual labor), depending on employment conditions. The issue at stake for feminism today is not just some women doing the demeaning work of other women but the classed evolution of the very meanings of work in contemporary societies. This book is based on new research that includes the experiences of two indigenous groups of domestic workers (little-studied British women of majority white ethnicity and well-studied Indian women) in comparison with most recent research that focuses on the experiences of migrant workers. The cross-cultural analytical approach offers a fresh perspective on globally inclusive meanings of paid domestic work and its relationship with feminism; challenging feminist dogmas and popular myths about housework, and locating domestic work within the wider field of work.