Butlers

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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basically, in most of these countries, anybody that you would know would have domestic help - but that will still be a small part of the country, for the most part. in india, for instance, about 10 % of the population is what we would considr middle to upper class. in india, if you are a college educated person, or have a real business, then most probrably you will have a maid, because you can get a maid for maybe as little as $100 a month, in some cases just for room and board and the occasional pocket money. obviously, half the population of a country cant have locally born servants, because somebody has to do the serving....

but, keep in mind there are places like singapore and Dubai, which import large numbers of servants. so, in a place like singapore I wouldn't be suprised if more than half the households had servants. my friend in sinapore doesn't have a car, and lives in government subsidized housing, but he has always had a maid, for instance.
This all sounds reasonable to me. I've never been to India but I would believe that something like 10% have help. What percentage have a college education would you say? In the US, something like 50% attend college for some time and about 25% finish w/ a 4yr degree. Any idea what the median household income is in India?

Is not having a car in Singapore like not having a car in NYC? How common is gov't subsidized housing there? Is it like in the US? Is the maid live-in? It would be hard for me to imagine someone in US subsidized housing having a live-in maid.

Edit: Sorry for the questions... I'm just interested.

Originally Posted by emptym

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Is not having a car in Singapore like not having a car in NYC?

Traffic here is somewhat better than downtown manhattan. I guess if you work in the city but live in the suburbs, the local version of the subway (we call it Mass Rapid Transit) and buses here are pretty efficient, you just have to squeeze like a sardine during rush hour.

But the reason why more people don't own cars isn't because of traffic though. It's just that prices are prohibitive. The 'dream' of many Singaporeans in the middle class is to someday be able to own a car. Car prices start at about USD35,000 for a sedan of japanese origin. (e.g. a corolla), and this is before adding in other costs like tolls, parking, fuel costs, etc. Entry-level German (e.g. 320i, E200) marques go for at least USD$90,000. Including hire purchase instalments, owning a car can easily cost a couple of grand a month. Bearing in mind that the average starting pay for a degree holder is something like USD$2,000, you can see why few people own cars.

Originally Posted by emptym

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How common is gov't subsidized housing there? Is it like in the US?

Extremely common. Something like 90% of the population live in subsidized housing. Subsidized housing involves high rise apartment buildings where the average size of a 4 room flat (3 bedrooms and a living room, kitchen which doubles up as a dining room and one or two bathrooms) is ~1000 square feet. I guess the standard is somewhat better than subsidized housing in the States, if only because subsidized housing here isn't exactly some form of social welfare but the norm, since property prices are ridiculous.

The price you pay for an apartment like I mentioned above will buy a moderately sized house and a yard in a nice suburb of any mid-sized American town (approx USD$250,000) or so. To actually own land involves mid-boggling sums in the millions. And bear in mind the USD$250,000 is already subsidized...

If anyone's interested, the government agency that's in charge of subsidized housing is at www.hdb.gov.sg

Originally Posted by emptym

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Is the maid live-in? It would be hard for me to imagine someone in US subsidized housing having a live-in maid.

Edit: Sorry for the questions... I'm just interested.

Yep, all maids are live-in. Basically the employer is responsible for the maid for the duration she is in Singapore. For people who live in subsidized housing where space is at a premium, the maid usually shares a room with the children. In landed property and some upmarket condos there is usually a maid's room, which usually is this tiny alcove where nothing else can fit.

Hope this answers your questions

Originally Posted by Lucky Strike

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Having domestic help was quite common in Scandinavia up until around WWII, -
Not really true. Scandinavia was, by and large, fairly poor before the 50s and 60s. Domestic help was for the privileged few (and they were very few).

Originally Posted by Lucky Strike

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Typical development; on my father's side, my great-grandparents had several domestics/housemaids, my grandparents had a live-in housekeeper until the nest was empty, and then had someone come in a coiuple of times a week, my parents has a local woman come in once a week, and I have a couple of Polish girls clean the flat and do the ironing once a week or so.
Again, not typical. Your great-grandparents having several domestics means they were in the upper-middle class at the very least, at a time when the distribution of income much different from what we see today...

Originally Posted by Lucky Strike

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I know of five people in all of Norway who seriously keep full-on butlers, and I doubt there are many more. You'd have to be very new or very old money to do that.
The fact that you even know five people who keep full-time butlers means you're clearly upper-class.

I would say Scandinavian society, and I would say Norway is the most stringent in this regard, is even more biased towards frugality and egalitarianism than what you've expressed. Sweden has a history of aristocracy, Denmark is more continental, and they are hence a little more accepting of such things.

Originally Posted by iammatt

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In my current building, everybody but us has live-in help, perhaps half US, half immigrant.
What would be your guess at the proportion of people with live-in help in the US? I thought it was something pretty low (maybe 2-3% or less), sounds correct?

Originally Posted by emptym

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So would you say that half or more of the households in countries like Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, India, Kenya, Egypt, etc, have live-in (or even part-time) domestic help?
No, I would not say that, except maybe in places like Dubai or Singapore for specific reasons.

I have no statistics, but 10% for a country like, say, Brazil or India sounds about right. My point was that this is already incredibly more than in developed countries, contrary to what you were saying some posts ago. I mean, in France it is probably more 0,01% and I doubt it reaches 10% even in the US...

It would be relatively easy for you or for me to have domestic help if we moved there, but we would be earning many times what the average native earned.

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Probably, but I think that's beside the point. I don't agree that the impression that live-in help is more frequent in 3rd-world countries is an illusion because of our biased prespective. It's a truth. As I said, anecdotal evidence would say it could be 10% of the population in these countries vs virtually nobody in Europe and few people in the US.

Originally Posted by redgrail

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The fact that you even know five people who keep full-time butlers means you're clearly upper-class.
He didn't say that he "knew 5 people" but that "he knew of 5 people" (as in "heard about them").

Originally Posted by redgrail

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Not really true. Scandinavia was, by and large, fairly poor before the 50s and 60s. Domestic help was for the privileged few (and they were very few).
This doesn't quite make sense. Scandinavia and particularly Norway were quite poor countries in that period. But as you can see in any contemporarily developing country, this would lead to more, rather than less servants - labour is cheap. See the discussion above. 60% of Norwegian primary schoolteachers supposedly had live-in domestics before WWII. At that time

Originally Posted by redgrail

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Again, not typical. Your great-grandparents having several domestics means they were in the upper-middle class at the very least, at a time when the distribution of income much different from what we see today...
"Upper-middle" would peg my different paternal great-grandparents well, I suppose. On the other hand, domestic service was a huge industry.

Originally Posted by redgrail

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The fact that you even know five people who keep full-time butlers means you're clearly upper-class.
I know of them, mostly through work and the general news - they're not exactly personal friends.

Originally Posted by redgrail

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I would say Scandinavian society, and I would say Norway is the most stringent in this regard, is even more biased towards frugality and egalitarianism than what you've expressed. Sweden has a history of aristocracy, Denmark is more continental, and they are hence a little more accepting of such things.
I agree - the egalitarianism in Norway is hard to overstate when explaining the country to foreigners. Example: Titles were formally abolished in Norway as early as 1821. Furthermore, I think the cultural and historical differences between the Scandinavian countries are easily underestimated. The very similar languages often leads to the assumption that the countries are equally similar in other respects.

Few close family friends here in the UK have full time maids and chefs in there homes. Also they have part time gardeners and a person who comes every day to look after there horses and ponies

Back home we have maids butlers and chefs in our family as well as the grounds keepers the drivers nannies the people whom take care of horses and ponies and an army of other servants

Originally Posted by aleksandr

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Hope this answers your questions

That was extremely helpful, thanks aleksandr.

Originally Posted by Étienne

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I have no statistics, but 10% for a country like, say, Brazil or India sounds about right. My point was that this is already incredibly more than in developed countries, contrary to what you were saying some posts ago. I mean, in France it is probably more 0,01% and I doubt it reaches 10% even in the US...


Probably, but I think that's beside the point. I don't agree that the impression that live-in help is more frequent in 3rd-world countries is an illusion because of our biased prespective. It's a truth. As I said, anecdotal evidence would say it could be 10% of the population in these countries vs virtually nobody in Europe and few people in the US.
I'm not sure why you're arguing against me. My point has always been that having live-in help in 3rd world countries is still the exception there, confined to a minority. 10% is still a minority within that country. Sure, it's a relatively large minority compared to the tiny minority in 1st world countries--I have nothing against that at all. But even if it's 10%, it's still a minority within 3rd world countries, which is my point.

And my position about the shelteredness of Westerners visiting 3rd world countries wasn't beside the point. It explains why many Westerners (and even 3rd world wealthy) may think "most people have maids in 3rd world countries." They don't, but if one only sees a privileged slice of a country, one might think it is the norm.

So I concede to you that it's more frequent than in 1st world countries. But I was never arguing against that. Would you concede that it is not the norm in 3rd world countries? Perhaps you were never arguing against that.

We have a Polish cleaner that comes in for 3-4 hours a week. She cleans the place, does the ironing, etc... For the hourly price, it would be silly not to.

In fact she is here now, banging something around upstairs.

I know a few people who have live in Au Pairs. Their main job is to look after the kids, but they do a bit of light cooking and cleaning for a few hours a week, or do the shopping / pick up dry cleaning.

I'm not sure of wages, but I get the impression that it includes room, board and a small monthly stipend. Funny thing is that many of the Au Pairs I saw in Amsterdam were Canadians.

I was told that its becuase they are spending so much time with the childeren, and the parents want to make sure that they are being exposed to a sort of clean North American accent.

K

Originally Posted by emptym

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My point has always been that having live-in help in 3rd world countries is still the exception there, confined to a minority.
Not only. You also said we (citizens of developed countries) have a biased view of the situation, and I don't think that's necessarily true. You are right that we should keep some perspective, but the fact still remains: it is much more prevalent in 3rd world countries.

So I concede to you that it's more frequent than in 1st world countries. But I was never arguing against that. Would you concede that it is not the norm in 3rd world countries? Perhaps you were never arguing against that.

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Nope, I wasn't. It's not the norm in 3rd world countries in the sense of "statistical norm", although much more prevalent than here. It is, however, the norm in the sense of "social norm" (the model of life everybody aspires to). In places like Scandinavia or most of Europe, not only is live-in help almost absent, but it is also, as some posters noted, very much against the social norm. All in all, I don't think we disagree that much, or even at all.

Originally Posted by Étienne

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What would be your guess at the proportion of people with live-in help in the US? I thought it was something pretty low (maybe 2-3% or less), sounds correct?



I would estimate that it would be well less than that, but I am not sure. In cities, space is always at a premium, and you almost need dedicated quarters for the help in order to house them, and outside of cities there is much less money. Even where I grew up, I would say it was well less than 10%, and it was probably one of the areas most likely to have people living in, and it was in a time when it was more common.

Originally Posted by emptym

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The median household income is in the mid to high $30k.
So such a live-in nanny would have a higher income than 50+% of Americans.

I thought that the median income was closer to $40k, which is still below the amount of money a couple can legally save in tax-deferred vehicles each year (two 401ks, two IRAs, and two HSAs).

Originally Posted by summej2

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I thought that the median income was closer to $40k, which is still below the amount of money a couple can legally save in tax-deferred vehicles each year (two 401ks, two IRAs, and two HSAs).

$48,201

Thanks, gdl203. I thought the IRS reported something like 38,000 a couple years ago.

Originally Posted by Étienne

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All in all, I don't think we disagree that much, or even at all.
I agree. And I like your distinction between statistical norm and social norm (as something to which we aspire).

My problem is when people (including many friends and relatives) say things like "In the Philippines, it's normal for people to have maids." I don't think they mean it's normal in the aspirational sense, but if they did, that would be true, imo.

its really hard for people who havent lived in the 3rd world to "grasp the concept". you really only come into contact with a tiny slice of the population. my best experience is with india - the very basic techs who worked for me there had maids. the sales people had maids and drivers. but 90 % of the population of the country was poorer than the guy who cleaned my office, so you have to take it in proportion.

a while back a westerner of of indian descent here was arguing over the issue of plumbing in india. he basically said that he had visited his family in india, and they all had plumbing, so, by extention, everybody in india must have plumbing. well, the majority of people in india don't have access to plumbing, but you are very unlikly to ever meet any of them. my point is that even people who live in these countries, unless somebody has gone out of their way to make them aware of the situation, probrably have no idea the differences in the levels of population.

my wife grew up in colombia. literally everybody in her school class had servants, has an advanced degree from a north american or european school, belongs to a country club and speaks fluent english. the only people she ever really "met" in colombia who were poor were people who served her, and even they were better off than average. many of her classmates have grown up never really grasping that there are poor people out there.

Originally Posted by iammatt

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I would estimate that it would be well less than that, but I am not sure. In cities, space is always at a premium, and you almost need dedicated quarters for the help in order to house them, and outside of cities there is much less money. Even where I grew up, I would say it was well less than 10%, and it was probably one of the areas most likely to have people living in, and it was in a time when it was more common.

I have a relative (by marridge) who is quite wealthy. when I was younger they had multiple servants, now the mother has a single servant who she calls her "secratary". a middle aged man who arranges all sorts of stuff for her, and she uses a cleaning service, a catering service, a handyman service, a car service, etc. I find that interesting.