EN
Paid domestic labor has experienced a remarkable growth since the 1980s - although in the 1970s many authors predicted the slow disappearance of domestic workers as a professional group parallel to the rise of the industrial societies. This new Renaissance of paid domestic work is inseparable from the global movement of labor - the overwhelming majority of paid domestic workers migrate from the developing countries to the developed, advanced capitalist world in the hope of higher wages and a better life. The paper introduces and critically evaluates the major paradigms of paid domestic work with respect to how they can inform the analysis of this contemporary social phenomenon. The review of the main paradigms of the English literature is expected to contribute to further empirical fieldwork in Hungary.