Tianjin Women's Federation has built the brand, Jin Sisters Domestic Service, promoted integration of domestic services and community-level women's work, and served women and families in urban and rural communities. 

Women's federations, at all levels in North China's Tianjin Municipality, have leveraged the roles of property-management enterprises (under the leadership of grassroots Party organizations) and women's micro homes (grassroots women's organizations) in serving and connecting with women. 

The federations have made good use of both domestic-service industry resources and women's volunteer teams, and they have made "going to women's micro home service stations" an option for residents who require domestic services. 

To offer reliable, high-quality domestic services, the federations have been focusing on strengthening the bonds between residents, communities and domestic-service providers, matching the demands of residents with domestic services, and providing diverse service options, so residents can receive services, provided by considerate individuals, without leaving the community.

The utilized work mechanism — "residents making orders, communities dispatching orders, domestic-service providers receiving orders, and users evaluating services" — enables a precise, efficient matching of high-quality, domestic-service resources with residents' needs. 

Domestic-service providers are known for providing cleaning and child- and elder-care services. However, they provide many other services, such as home maintenance, repairing bicycles, bathing seniors in their homes, and accompanying elderly people to hospitals. 

To foster women's employment and entrepreneurship potential, and to unlock market vitality, Tianjin Women's Federation has provided public-welfare-skills training and guidance on entrepreneurship to various groups waiting for employment, such as full-time mothers, migrant workers, college students and registered-unemployed individuals. 

Tianjin Women's Federation has also encouraged domestic-service providers to join community volunteer service teams, and to offer free in-home services to low-income families and families with elderly people and/or people with disabilities.

The women's federation of Tianjin's Dongli District has supported domestic-service providers by offering domestic-skills training in cleaning, cooking and caring for children and the elderly. 

It has also encouraged domestic-service providers to join volunteer-service teams, provide high-quality home services below market price for ordinary families, and provide free in-home services to disadvantaged groups. 

The women's federation of Tianjin's Jinnan District attaches importance to the integration of the domestic-service industry and vocational education. It has guided vocational institutions in the district, including Tianjin Vocational Institute and Tianjin Binhai Vocational Institute of Automotive Engineering, to offer domestic-service courses. 

Such courses have helped students better understand the domestic-service industry, and in turn broaden their employment perspectives. Some students have opened community domestic-service shops after they have graduated. 

The women's federation of Tianjin's Wuqing District has organized 110 domestic-service training sessions, and has helped more than 1,000 rural women change their traditional view of domestic services and find jobs in the industry. It has trained about 19,000 domestic-service professionals, and it has helped more than 10,000 women find employment.

Photos from Tianjin Women's Federation

(Women of China English Monthly July 2024)

Editor: Wang Shasha