Care Workers' Risk Work: How Nannies Manage Invisible Threats in Employers' Homes

Paper Title

Care Workers' Risk Work: How Nannies Manage Invisible Threats in Employers' Homes

Publication Info

• Topic area: Risks and coping strategies of nannies in domestic childcare settings.
• Keywords: domestic childcare, nannies, risk work, invisible labor, emotional labor, financial precarity, sociotechnical interventions, smart home technologies, relational constraints, worker-centered design.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Nannies face physical, emotional, and financial risks in employer-controlled home environments, with limited formal protections or institutional support. These risks are often invisible and unresolved due to relational and structural constraints.
• Significance: Understanding and addressing these risks is critical to improving the safety, well-being, and sustainability of domestic childcare work, which is essential for family and societal functioning.
• Motivation and related work: Prior HCI and CSCW research has focused on eldercare, unpaid caregiving, and smart home technologies, but paid childcare work remains understudied. Existing studies highlight vulnerabilities like wage theft, emotional labor, and privacy violations but lack a comprehensive understanding of nannies’ unique challenges and strategies.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Use the sociological framework of "risk work" to analyze nannies' experiences and coping strategies, and propose sociotechnical interventions tailored to their needs.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical documentation of the risks and risk management strategies experienced by nannies.
  2. Nuanced understanding of relational and structural constraints shaping these risks.
  3. Application of the "risk work" framework to uncover hidden risks and tensions in domestic childcare.
  4. Proposals for worker-centered, reciprocal, and separation-focused sociotechnical interventions.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 full-time nannies in the U.S.
  • Used hybrid thematic analysis to identify themes related to risks and coping strategies.
  • Applied the "risk work" framework to interpret findings and propose design principles.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Identified three main risks:
    1. Physical risks: Overwhelming workloads beyond childcare, lack of breaks, and isolation.
    2. Emotional risks: Relational entanglements with employers, overattachment to children, and difficulty setting boundaries.
    3. Financial risks: Unfair compensation, inconsistent payment, limited benefits, and lack of legal protections.
  • Nannies often rely on indirect strategies (e.g., ignoring unfair demands, quietly preparing to leave) due to fear of retaliation or job loss.
• Advantage over baselines: Provides a multi-dimensional understanding of risks specific to nannies, extending prior research on eldercare and informal caregiving. Highlights the limitations of employer-centered technologies and proposes worker-centered solutions.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Interviews with 21 nannies (average age 33.3, average career length 9 years) across the U.S., focusing on their experiences with risks and strategies.
  • Data analyzed using thematic coding and the "risk work" framework.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited generalizability due to U.S.-centric and predominantly female sample.
  • Excludes part-time workers and severe crises like abuse.
  • Future research should explore global care labor dynamics, advanced smart home technologies, and high-risk situations.

Summary

This study examines the risks faced by nannies in domestic childcare settings and their strategies to manage them through the lens of "risk work." It identifies physical, emotional, and financial risks shaped by relational and structural constraints, and highlights how indirect coping strategies often leave risks unresolved. The findings underscore the need for worker-centered, reciprocal sociotechnical interventions that address these unique challenges. Future designs should focus on making risks visible, supporting psychological separation, and providing standardized protections independent of employer-controlled technologies. This work advances the understanding of invisible labor in HCI and CSCW and offers actionable insights for safer and more sustainable domestic childcare environments.