Enacting Domestic Worker Bills of Rights: A Quasi-experimental Analysis of Impacts on Domestic Workers' Working Hours...

Since 2010, 12 states and three cities in the United States have enacted Domestic Worker Bills of Rights (DW BoR), codifying minimum wage, overtime, anti-harassment protections, and more for many domestic workers (eg, private household childcare, home health, personal care, and housekeeping workers). We used repeated cross-sectional nationally representative 2006-2019 American Community Survey data and difference-in-differences methods to compare changes in domestic workers' hours and earned income in eight states that enacted DW BoR versus 12 politically similar states that did not. Enacting DW BoR was associated with reductions in overtime and extremely long hours in Years 6-9 post-enactment, without negatively impacting earnings. Agency-employed domestic workers and home health, personal care, and childcare workers experienced larger reductions in hours than informally employed or housekeeping workers, respectively. Results suggest potential benefits and challenges of using legislation to improve domestic working conditions and are highly relevant to policy advocacy and enforcement efforts.