Au Pairs

Au Pairs

Au pairs is a young woman, who takes on some responsibilities like child care and other household work, in return, she receives some monitory stipend for personal usage. She is basically a national/foreign household assistant residing as part or working for host family.

The word Au Pairs has been derived from French dictionary that means that the relationship is expected to be equivalent; she should be taken as a member of family rather than a home servant.

Arrangements for au pairs

The placement of au pairs is done according to an agreement in which an unmarried individual (with age group between 18 to 26 years, also in some countries, the age limit is as 17 to 30 years) lives in foreign country for about two years as a family member of local household. For staying, a private room is provided with some reasonable allowance, some working hours are fixed and two days are kept off in a week. Some countries have established some regulations that au pairs should have a legal contract with family in which he/she is living.

Treatment of au pairs

It has been recommended that au pairs should be treated like a family member, but not like domestic servants and he/she can not be enforced to wear a specific dress for working like uniform. Usually, au pairs take their meal with host family and also join in some family activities like trips and outings. In several nations, some rules and regulations have been established as how many hours the au pairs should work. The main jobs performed by these au pairs are cleaning, cooking, babysitting, and taking kids to and from school, taking child for doing other activities and ironing. The placement of each au pair varies according to host families. All expenses are paid by host family and a monthly allowance is also provided along with.
Qualifications for au pairs

• Au pairs should have some practical or professional childcare proficiency for about 200 hours.


• They should have completed their higher secondary education.


• They should have no criminal record and also should be fluent in English.

Several agencies have been established throughout the whole world which provide au pairs, host families require to pay only these agencies.