There is talk in Europe of targeting tax-based wage subsidies at this sector because the employment level looks to be sensitive to cost reductions.
Naturally we would prefer such jobs reflect humane standards of pay, etc. How this sector is gendered would seem to be a separate issue, since the counter- factual is that unemployment is gendered, or more gendered.
Social status and gendering would seem to hinge on pay more than anything else. The status of an architect or interior decorator who works in a home is clearly not the same as a domestic sanitary engineer. Insofar as this remains lower-skill work, lower social status and all that goes with it, including gendering, would seem to be inevitable, absent social regulation that raised the standards for employment and, in the process, probably destroyed some jobs in the bargain.
Regarding Nathan's tax credit-cum-family allowance, any such arrangement logically needs to encompass some resolution of the marriage tax issue, one way or another, as well as the kiddie credit issues. A nice project for some worthy.
mbs