Practices of Breaking an Informal Contract on Russian Markets for In-home Childcare Services

This work is devoted to the study of the processes occurring at the break of the informal contract in the Russian market of domestic labor for the care of children and the attitude to such practices on the part of both representatives of the family – parents and employees – nannies. The main objectives of this study were: typology of the reasons that lead to the break of the informal contract between the nanny and the family; identification and description of the emerging problems associated with the break of the contract; description of the consequences of this or that way of breaking the informal contract - how this process affected the further actions and principles of decision-making in the field of child care both on the part of nannies and on the part of parents. The main criterion for the selection of informants was the fact of the completed process of termination of the contract, as only in this case it is possible to see the full picture of this experience. The result was 15 interviews - 10 of which are representatives of parents who are more willing to share details of their experience and 5 interviews - with nannies who described not one, but several different experiences. All informants are women from 26 to 54 years old, living and working in Moscow. For this study, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews. As a result of this study, we came to the conclusion that there is a huge variety of reasons for the rupture of contracts, the problems associated with this gap. This study can be the basis for further study of the issue, for quantitative researches on this topic. Such studies are necessary to reduce the percentage of informality on this market and reduce risks for parents and nannies.