The French sociologist who infiltrated the homes of the ultra-rich to expose how modern servitude works

What happens between the rich and their employees behind closed doors?

This is a question that has fascinated writers and filmmakers for centuries. French sociologist Alizée Delpierre decided to approach it scientifically.

She wanted to understand the sophisticated systems of servitude that the world's richest people build inside their homes to satisfy their eccentric needs and desires.

Alizée toured luxurious apartments in central Paris and beautiful mansions on the French Riviera.

He heard a woman say to her maid, "I wonder if she'll ever understand that I want two ice cubes, not three."

A housekeeper told me that her employer had two and a half eggs for breakfast. She heard about houses where the distance between the cutlery on the table must be measured in millimeters.

And she went further: she herself became a nanny and part-time kitchen assistant for a woman from the Parisian aristocracy. She even lived with her family in China for a few months as an au pair (childminder).

The result of years of research on the subject is the book Servir a los Ricos (Serving the Rich, no Portuguese edition) , recently published in Spanish, in which she delves into the codependent relationships that occur in the luxurious living rooms of French homes — but which, with some variations, are also repeated in other parts of the world.

By delving deeply into the intimacy of the rich, the sociologist reveals how domestic work relates to issues in the globalized world, such as immigration and inequality.

And it raises questions about money and power that are relevant to people of all walks of life.

Delpierre is a researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research. Below is an edited version of her conversation with BBC Mundo, the BBC's Spanish-language service.

BBC News Mundo - Your book generated a lot of interest because part of your research involved infiltrating the homes of millionaires. What did this methodology allow you to do?

Alizée Delpierre - Well, infiltrating wasn't the only thing I did.

First, I conducted many interviews with wealthy people and with male and female employees. And from these interviews, I obtained a lot of information about the relationship between employers and employees.

But I also wanted to study the relationship between the employees themselves, and for that, interviews weren't working.

When I became a maid in the homes of the rich, I was able to see that among the servants there are hierarchies, relationships of friendship, of love, but also of competition.

These are people who can earn a lot by serving the rich, but who need to show their bosses that they work very well, that they are docile, that they obey all orders, etc. Sometimes, this generates competition.

BBC News Mundo - In the book, you describe the relationship between employers and employees as a "golden exploitation". What do you mean by that?

Delpierre - "Golden exploitation" is an oxymoron [union of words with opposite meanings] that helps me explain that employees are in a situation of exploitation because they work unlimitedly, but at the same time they work a lot, they also earn a lot.

I saw for myself how, despite being only a part-time employee, employers asked me to work much more than we had agreed.

So, the employees who work every day in the homes of the rich, who sleep there — because that is a condition of working for the rich — work all day and also at night.

For example, women who take care of children hardly get any sleep. They have to sleep in the children's beds or rooms, so they don't sleep well at night. And during the day they have to cook for the children, go out with them, etc.

It's a type of exploitation, because they don't have time to do anything other than work.

The "golden" part is that they earn a lot: 3 thousand, 4 thousand, 5 thousand, even 12 thousand euros [between R$ 19 thousand and R$ 76 thousand - the monthly minimum wage in France is 1.8 thousand euros, or R$ 11.4 thousand].

If we compare these employees with the rest of the working population, they are part of the rich.

They also receive many very expensive gifts: cell phones, clothes, food, etc.

I was very surprised to see that in the homes of the rich, gifts for employees could be Chanel clothes, a bag from a brand I didn't even know because it's only for the ultra-rich, etc.

So, these employees have a lot of money, they receive very expensive gifts, they can eat rich people's food, they sleep in very large and beautiful houses. They have very good material conditions.

Golden exploitation is a system that works like this: the more money and gifts the rich give to their employees, the more legitimized they feel to demand that they work even harder.

A kind of debt is created. Employees feel they need to work to make up for everything they have received — the high salary, the gifts, the privileges.

BBC Mundo - It is clear that in this type of work, the professional mixes with the personal. What effect does this have? How would you describe this emotional relationship between the rich and the employees?

Delpierre - When you live with a person — whoever it may be — you inevitably end up creating a relationship that is not just about work.

There are emotions, affection, even love: love for the bosses, love for the bosses' children. It's an almost familial relationship.

Saying that employees are “part of the family” cannot be understood as just hypocritical rhetoric. The emotions are real.

And precisely for this reason — because they are considered part of the family — employers feel entitled to ask for more than they would ask of any other type of worker.

Sociology, which studies relationships within the family, has already shown that it is precisely in this space that very marked forms of domination and even violence emerge.

This happens because there is no one outside observing what is happening in the privacy of the home.

Because employees are treated as part of the family, the wealthy feel free to use them as they please. But at the same time, they also care about their employees—for their health and that of their families, for example.

I met many employees who lived in their employers' houses with their own children, and the rich paid for their schooling, food, doctor's fees, etc.

It is an ambivalent relationship.

BBC Mundo - So there is an undeniable closeness, but in the book you also describe that there is a certain distance. How do the rich establish this distance with their employees?

Delpierre - In many ways.

One of them is spatial. In the homes of the rich, the servants cannot move around all the areas. They cannot use the pool, they cannot go to the parts of the house where the rich gather with their friends. They do not have freedom of movement.

In the larger houses I have seen, there are separate hallways for the servants and the employers, so that the employers do not see the servants all the time.

Another way employers enforce distance is by changing employees’ names. If your name is Juan, they might call you Joseph, for example.

And there is a racialization in this name change. When employees are foreigners — which is the case for many these days — employers change their names to French ones. This is symbolic violence, as Pierre Bourdieu would say.

There are employers who always give the same name to all their employees. For example, the nanny's name is always Maria. If a new nanny arrives, she will also be called Maria.

It is a way of demonstrating the superiority of the rich over other people, who are depersonalized.

BBC Mundo - It is impossible to ignore the fact that the vast majority of people who dedicate themselves to this work are women, some of them black or Latino. What is the role of these identities? How do gender and race come into play in domestic work?

Delpierre - Race and gender are central to the way the domestic labor market is structured.

It's a market where you don't sell yourself with a resume. No diplomas are required — and they don't even exist in this context.

Employers need to identify other qualities to choose the "best" employees, and what ends up happening is that these skills are essentialized.

For example, only women can take care of children, because it is believed that they have a natural tendency to do so. Drivers are always men, because of the prejudice that they know how to drive better. I have not found any men working as nannies in the homes of the rich.

In the domestic labor market, many racial stereotypes are also at play.

For example, in France, it is said that black women are affectionate. And so employers prefer black women to take care of small children. There is a deeply racist and colonial representation of the African woman as someone destined to have many children and be a mother.

Even white people are racialized. The wealthy prefer to have white men or women at the top of the household hierarchy. Butlers, for example, tend to be from European countries.

Of course, these prejudices are not exclusive to the domestic labor market, but in this sector, gender and race are the primary criteria when choosing employees.

BBC Mundo - Cinema and literature have often portrayed the relationship between the rich and their servants. You yourself mention it in the book Parasite, the famous Korean film from 2019. In it, as in many other stories, the rich are shown as being threatened by their own servants. Did you find anything like this in your research? Are the rich afraid of their servants?

Delpierre - It's interesting, because these films always show employees taking revenge for all the domination they suffered at the hands of their bosses.

But the reality is different. I have not come across any employee who has killed his boss (laughs). Yes, I have come across some cases of employees who have stolen, but that is very rare.

Most of the time, the rich are not really afraid of their employees, because they know that they hold all the power. They know that without their money, their employees are nothing. Without their homes, their employees have nowhere to sleep.

If an employee decided to go to court, the rich would come out on top, because their friends are lawyers and have a lot of social capital. They know they are untouchable. They know that nothing can happen to them. In the few cases I have come across in court where an employee sued his boss, the boss won.

So, no, they are not afraid of their employees. The only thing they are afraid of is that they will leave, that they will find another place to work. That is why in the book I address the subject of the bosses' dreams.

Some people told me, "Last night I dreamed that my nanny was leaving and I didn't know what to do with my children." These people have servants every day. They don't know how to cook.

A woman told me that she didn't know how to take her children to school, didn't know which street to take, etc. So, her biggest fear was that the nanny would say "I'm going to work in another house" or "I'm going to be late".

BBC Mundo - In the book you also address the recent debate about the vocabulary used to talk about domestic work and what is considered politically correct. In Spanish, for example, people today try to talk about "domestic workers" and not "servants" or "servants". How is this treated in the homes of the wealthy? Do you have a position on this?

Delpierre - In French, the rich often speak of domestiques or bonnes (maids).

Domestiques comes from the Latin word domus , which means house. And this is important. I think it is necessary to emphasize the word "house". The particularity of these relationships is that they take place within the home. It is a very special workspace. Atypical. It is the space of family, of secrets, of intimacy, etc., and that is why relationships occur the way they do.

It seems inappropriate to me to use institutional terms such as "domestic work" because they hide domination. Of course, I am not against the struggle of workers who defend that this be recognized as work.

But calling them "domestic workers" doesn't improve working conditions or change the relationship with employers.

The reality of employees' working conditions today is practically the same as it was throughout history.

As a sociologist, I decided to keep only the word domestiques and not use the term "domestic workers", precisely to indicate the historical continuity between domesticity today and that of the past.

If we use "domestic work," we are marking a break with the domestic service of old Europe. And my position as a scientist is that although some things have changed, domesticity remains the same.

Millions and millions of women around the world, especially poor and migrant women, are employed. And more and more people are hiring people to work in their homes on an hourly basis, as au pairs , etc.

This raises an important question for everyone — not just the ultra-rich:

What do we do with housework? Should we do it ourselves? Should we pay someone to do it? Should we ask our family members to help us for free?

This is a very universal question.