Argentina's Domestic Workers Law 26.844 (2013) — Registration Doubled, but Three in Four Still Unregistered

Argentina's Law 26.844 of 2013 created a special employment-contract regime for household staff (personal de casas particulares), a sector dominated by women. It requires employers to register every domestic worker regardless of weekly hours, and extends rights aligned with ILO Convention 189.
Reported results: the Labour Minister stated that registered domestic workers more than doubled, from about 220,000 in the law's first year to almost 475,000 by March 2015, while an estimated 600,000 still worked off the books. INDEC data reported by Chequeado put unregistered domestic employment at 74.9% in Q2 2018 (against above 90% in 2006-07), so the gap narrowed but informality remains the norm.
A peer-reviewed study (Boruchowicz, World Bank Economic Review, 2025) found that formalisation after the reform rose about 5 percentage points less for domestic workers with children under 18, who are eligible for the AUH cash transfer, than for those with older children; the author suggests, without direct proof, that workers feared losing benefits.
Lesson for transfer: registration mandates paired with enforcement can raise formal coverage in feminised low-pay sectors, but interactions with means-tested benefits and weak enforcement can blunt the effect. Figures are cited as reported; no counterfactual evaluation of the aggregate effect was found.

Read the full analysis: https://chequeado.com/hilando-fino/dia-de-las-empleadas-domesticas-el-75-tienen-empleos-en-negro/