They do this work because of circumstances.

Why do Indians keep servants and what does it do to us, asks Aakar Patel. By doing our household chores domestic servants allow us more time for leisure, to pursue hobbies and to earn more. But Patel writes that the evidence does not support economic reasons for keeping servants because,"Even Indians with modest incomes keep them because physical work, specifically cleaning, is looked down upon in our culture." Maybe, but why are people doing such menial work and what would they do to earn a living if such work is not available? Working as a domestic help does not require any education or training because all women (most domestic help are women) do the same work at home. Patel writes that what it does is to "perpetuate, extend, solidify and validate our caste hierarchy". That is not true because a lot of upper caste people also do this work because of poverty. Why do women work as maids abroad when there are horrific stories of torture? Prof Dipankar Gupta wrote how thousands of upper caste people, some with postgraduate degrees, applied for posts of 'safai karmacharis', or sweepers, in UP. Not just Indians. The Queen advertised for someone to wash dishes at Buckingham Palace at a salary of 17,000 pounds. The average annual salary in Britain is 26,500 pounds, at minimum wage it would be 13,124 pounds per year. Perhaps, the reason why people employ domestic help is because they are available. Picks an shovels are still used to dig roads and humans are still cleaning filthy sewers, often dying in the process, even though it has been banned. These people are doing government work so why does the government employ them? Because if all work is shifted to machines millions of people would be out of work and starving. That is the tragedy of India -- that people are cheap. The only way to stop people from doing domestic work is to educate them but millions of children are learning nothing at school. There has actually been a fall in standards of reading and arithmetic. About 15% of children, especially girls, drop out of school. A lot of them cannot cope with lessons and lose interest. There is not much they can do to earn a living other than domestic work. Without any skills they lack bargaining power. Yet the number of women in the labor force is falling. Is it because men are earning more or because there are no jobs? What is unconscionable is ill treatment of our domestic workers. In 1870, 52% of women worked as domestic help in the US but now the number has fallen and wages have increased substantially because the country has got rich. Our economy has to grow, education has to improve and more jobs have to be created. Sadly, the World Bank predicts that 69% of jobs will be lost to automation. Hopefully new types of jobs will be created. Else domestic help are here to stay.