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7. Conclusion 
The objective of this study has been to conceptualize the working hours of domestic 
workers as a subject of legal regulation and to consider the nature and form that regulatory 
measures might take effectively to govern this segment of the global labour force. The 
study has drawn on the traditions of working time regulation by the ILO, and the 
burgeoning contemporary literature on working time to develop an integrated, universal, 
and flexible and comprehensive approach to the problem. 
The study first identified the regulatory dimensions of contemporary working time 
patterns in domestic work. It then reviewed the variables that shape the diversity of 
domestic work, in particular legal modes of engagement and the stage in the life-course 
and citizenship status of the domestic worker. Conceptual advances within the research and 
policy literature on working time were then highlighted. It was suggested in particular that 
the recent focus on work/family reconciliation as an objective of working time law 
highlights the ways in which domestic work may be damaging to family life of the worker. 
The approach in this study builds on advances in the mainstream of working time law that 
address the work/family issue and call for them to be extended to domestic workers. 
Domestic work was also identified as a form of precarious work, requiring interventions 
that address the interplay of flexibility and protection, and the notion of working time 
flexibility was analysed both to expose working time arrangements in domestic work as 
embodying unconstrained flexibility and to consider how ―regulated‖ forms of flexibility 
could be integrated into the design of legal frameworks. 
Drawing on these insights, the study elaborated a set of principles to underpin the 
regulation of working time in domestic work. The evolution in the scope and role of the 
international standards was then reviewed and an argument made that an international 
standard on domestic work is called for, given the broad trajectory of ILO standards. 
Finally, it was contended that to regulate domestic work, a ―framed flexibility‖ model 
should be adopted, which permits the kinds of flexibility needed in many domestic jobs 
while simultaneously offering sufficient protection to workers to ensure decent work. 

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