Despite recent reforms in South Africa's domestic work sector, a critical gap remains: the lack of retirement savings for domestic workers. This article explores the implications of this oversight and the urgent need for solutions to secure their financial future.
Image: File
Household employment has become increasingly formalised over the past few years, but there is still one big gap: domestic workers do not have access to retirement savings.
Other reforms have been widespread and far-reaching. Today, a domestic worker who works more than 24 hours a month must be registered for the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF). Employers of domestic workers are now also obliged to register with the Compensation Fund and submit annual returns, with a 10% penalty for late submissions. Since March 1, 2026, the national minimum wage of R30.23 an hour applies to domestic workers too. And now, every household employer in South Africa must submit their Returns of Earnings under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA) by 30 June 2026.
But we still haven’t addressed the national crisis of lack of retirement savings. That’s deeply worrying, given that 82% of domestic workers are their household’s primary breadwinner, and 72% don’t earn enough each month to save a single rand.
This gap is important because domestic work is a major part of the economy. Stats SA’s Q3 2024 data shows about 1.1 million South Africans employed in private households, with 854 000 working as domestic workers. SweepSouth’s 2025 report, based on more than 5 000 responses, found that domestic workers support an average of nearly four dependents. Yet one-third are in debt, and 39% earn less than the minimum wage. Most are already using their low and unstable incomes to cover food, transport, rent, school costs, and dependents.
If retirement provision is going to happen for South Africa’s domestic workers, it will have to come via an employer-backed mechanism. It can’t come from spare income that simply isn’t there.
We can’t keep pretending that a solution is impossible. Low-friction products already exist for exactly this market.
Beyond retirement savings, access to affordable risk cover is just as critical for households that rely on a single income.
For domestic workers who are primary breadwinners supporting multiple dependants, this means families are not left financially exposed in the event of death or incapacity. In a sector where one unexpected event can push entire households into distress, basic risk protection offers an essential layer of security alongside long-term retirement savings.
That does not solve the broader structural problem, but it does take away one of the oldest excuses: that providing employee benefits for domestic workers is administratively too hard or only viable for large employers.
The harder truth is that South Africa has treated compliance in domestic work as the finish line when it is really the start line. UIF matters. COIDA matters. Minimum wage enforcement matters. But a domestic worker can be formally employed, legally paid, and still walk into old age with no savings, no income, and no buffer except for the hope that family or the state will absorb the burden.
This is not only a personal tragedy, but also a public cost. When domestic workers retire with nothing, their needs remain. The responsibility then falls on their children, extended families, communities, and eventually the state.
Recent changes in pension law give South Africa a chance to ask a harder question. If we care about retirement security in formal workplaces, why are we still so relaxed about the retirement future of the people who make other households’ working lives possible?
Households may be the most overlooked employers in South Africa. It is time to bring retirement into that discussion too.
* Cezula is the executive consultant at Sanlam Umbrella Solutions.
PERSONAL FINANCE