![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/122\/2019\/06\/k.jpg?resize=676%2C507\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Smaro Maniati\u2019s office in Athens Home Services in Central Athens.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n By Marissa Michaels<\/em><\/p>\n ATHENS <\/strong>— At Athens Home Services<\/a>, located on the fourth floor of an otherwise quiet and dark building, three women sat waiting in a cheery office, but refused to be photographed or interviewed.<\/p>\n The possibility of their names being published made them noticeably nervous.\u00a0 A Filipina woman laughed and shook her head but would not speak, even to say \u201cno.\u201d Another woman said that her name was Mimi but would not concede further information.<\/p>\n With forlorn looks, the women would say only that their employers have worked them harder and harder as the Greek economy has plummeted. Their backs now ache.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you don\u2019t have money running out of pocket, you ask more for your money and you expect everything,\u201d explained Smaro Maniati, the founder and owner of Athens Home Services.<\/p>\n Greece\u2019s financial crisis, which hit in 2009, has made life harder for almost everyone. The unemployment rate skyrocketed, many public services were cut, and people had to tighten their budgets.<\/p>\n Greece\u2019s vibrant industry of domestic workers, composed mostly of migrants from countries such as the Philippines, Ethiopia, Georgia, and Bulgaria, was also affected.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Greece, it is common for families to hire workers who live in their homes to take care of dishes, laundry, children and elderly family members. Over half of all migrant women in Greece do domestic work.<\/p>\n Athens Home Services, which Maniati founded in January of 2009, connects domestic workers to homes in Athens.<\/p>\n While many other industries plummeted, Maniati\u2019s business prospered. \u201cIt went reverse,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n Maniati explained that when the financial crisis hit Greece, the demographics of her clientele changed. Before the crisis, plenty of middle-class homes had domestic workers. But once the economy crashed, these people were unable to afford extra expenses.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce the crisis hit those households, they fired the person. So, it was really small houses with everyday people who used these services, but they didn\u2019t need it anymore,\u201d Maniati explained.<\/p>\n As the crisis hit, households with small incomes fired workers, but a new market emerged. Wealthy people who previously had no need to work long hours began working more to compensate for slashes to their income. With these long hours, many ended up providing funds for domestic workers to ensure their children were cared for.<\/p>\n Maniati explained, \u201cThe people who wanted to work harder, to make more money exactly because of the crisis, spent more hours working. Suddenly, it was a necessity to have someone back home to look after the kids and the house.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou had to work more hours to make less money,\u201d according to Maniati.<\/p>\n The demographics of those who need housekeepers has shifted, but business has done well for Maniati. \u201cSo the reality is that what has been lost on one side, balances with the people who actually needed the services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Greece does not keep official statistics on domestic workers, many of whom work illegally, so it is unclear if this trend is consistent with data from other companies. Some workers think Maniati\u2019s company might be unique.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cueto in the migrant-populated neighborhood of Kypseli.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Noriel Cueto, 37, left his home in the Philippines to come work for a family in Athens when he was just 19. He came when his aunt, already stationed in Athens, told him about an open position. In Athens, he met his Filipino wife and had three children.<\/p>\n When the crisis hit, his wife was fired from her job as a domestic worker and had to move back to the Philippines with the children.<\/p>\n In Cueto\u2019s view, the market for domestic workers shrunk significantly when the crisis started.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore that, every year, somebody come (sic.) from my family\u2026but when it hit crisis (sic.), they stopped getting people from outside,\u201d Cueto noted, observing that his own family could no longer get jobs in Athens.<\/p>\n Cueto considers himself lucky to have maintained employment with a family throughout the crisis. He said, \u201cIt\u2019s like home.\u201d With this job, he was able to escape a lifetime of picking rice for a poor wage in the Philippines.<\/p>\n With a crashing economy, immigrants fled<\/p>\n Regardless of the wider economy, Maniati is pleased with how her company has done in the past 10 years. Maniati considers Athens Home Services to be an expensive agency, and initially worried that this would turn off customers during Greece\u2019s financial crisis. Though the economy has crashed, her company has seen a steady rise in the demand for live-in domestic workers.<\/p>\n In fact, she noted that she often does not have enough \u00a0workers to meet the demands of her clients, even with her database of 8,500 workers.<\/p>\n Maniati attributes the dearth of domestic workers to the exodus of migrants from Greece after the financial crisis. Those who were able to leave fled when they realized the economy was plummeting, before many European countries closed their borders in 2016.<\/p>\n Cueto affirmed that many migrants fled Greece after the crisis in 2009, including many domestic workers. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot. Some of them went to France, London. And some\u2026they\u2019re going back home to the Philippines for good instead of staying here with nothing to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/122\/2019\/06\/m.png?resize=676%2C507\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/commons.princeton.edu\/globalreporting2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/122\/2019\/06\/l.jpg?resize=676%2C507\")
<\/p>\n