Migrant Domestic Care Workers: State and Market-based Policy Mix (WP 13.2)

Olena Fedyuk, Attila Bartha, Viola Zentai(Center for Policy Studies,

Central European University, Budapest)2nd NEUJOBS Validation Event: Employment 2025 –

How Will Multiple Transitions Affect the European Labor Market?9-10 April 2014, IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor), Bonn

Migrant domestic care workers: research questions

How do the different mixtures of state- and market-based policies shape care regimes?

How do transnational care chains affect care and labour conditions of women of different ages, legal status and ethnicity, and how do the particular state- and market-based configurations of care and migration regimes sustain and reproduce transnational care chains?

Key concept of the approach: care chain

Care chain: movement of women out of reproductive labour in their families into the productive, commercialised sphere of providing similar care and domestic services for money (in more affluent economies of the world).

This concept encompasses the exodus of women from their homes to provide care in others’ homes thus it has become an important source of employment for women in many developing countries (and Eastern European countries).

Rationale of country selection EU

membership Welfare regime Organisational depth

and financial generosity of long-term care*

Position of migration in the care chain

Italy OMS Bismarckian, South-European

Medium organisational depth, medium-level of

financial generosity

Receiving

Poland NMS Bismarckian, post-socialist

Shallow organisational depth, low level of financial generosity

Sending and receiving

Romania NMS Post-socialist, towards residual or

South-European

Shallow organisational depth, low level of financial generosity

Mainly sending

United Kingdom

OMS Liberal Medium organisational depth, medium-level of

financial generosity

Receiving

Ukraine EAP Formally universal, informality driven

n. a. Sending

Full time equivalent care use for all children below the age of three

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Poland Romania United Kingdom

Italy EU-27

Formal care

Informal care

Care sector and migration in the EUMigrants increasingly overrepresented in care and domestic work

ILO “Decent work for domestic workers”(2010) OECD “Migration Outlook” (2012)

- growing prevalence of migrant work in domestic work in the past 30 years

- in several regions, including Europe, the Gulf countries and the Middle East, the majority of domestic labourers today are migrant women

- between the “crisis” years of 2008-2011 the fastest growing sector of migrants employment was in “resident care activities”

- only to 12.6% of increase in employment among the native population, while 46.9% among the foreign born population in this sector

- a total of 643 000 jobs were created in “residential care activities” of which more than 50% were taken by foreign-born workers

- “Activities of households as employers of domestic personnel” increase of 17.8% (additional 193 000 jobs) filled by migrants

United KingdomCare-regime: monetary allowances, cash provisions, direct payments, tax

reductions and insurance schemes that allow purchasing (in)formal care;

58% are ‘micro establishments’ employing between one to ten people (adult social care)

Migration policies (in relation to care): restrictive immigration policies with no special provisions for care-

workers but strongly linked to work contracts and nationality companies, agencies and individuals offering care and domestic

services au pairs and domestic workers

=> “migrant in the market” (van Hooren)

ItalyCare regime:weak formal and institutional care provisionstraditionally, subsidies and employment policies favouring

parental care (male breadwinner/female carer) and/or recruiting informal care providers

Migration policies (in relation to care):large immigration quotas specifically for domestic

and care workers (105.000 in 2008, when all other occupational quotas banned in the “crisis aftermath”)

booming market of affordable care-givers and domestic workers of immigrant origin

=> “migrant-in-the-family” (Bettio, Van Hooren)

PolandCare regime: rather weak institutional and formal care provisions (especially for

elderly); parental care dominates state- and church- encouraged ideological turn: woman’s role as

carer reliance on family (intergenerational) networks for care upper-middle class: turning to private care and domestic help

often of immigrant origin

Migration (in relation to care): Poland’s access to the EU: massive outflow of workforce (including

women into the care sector towards Germany, the UK and Italy) Poland: both sending and receiving country in the

transnational care chain! opening up its borders and labour markets to non-EU immigrants, particularly Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Moldova

=> Poland: parental care + migrant on the informal market

RomaniaCare regime: means-tested provisions, strongly oriented towards meeting the need of

people with disabilities lack of funding and regional disparity of institutional care provisions

(residual formal institutional care and with strong inequalities) family-based arrangements of care

Migration (in relation to care): a steep feminization of migration from Romania (find employment in

domestic and care sector particularly in Southern Europe (Italy and Spain) and the UK.

granting citizenship to Moldavian citizens (94.916 between 1991 and 2001) – inflow of cheap labour force (both into the care sector)

=>“socially visible, but not statistically evident” migrants (Pantea)

Care sector: problem of job quality

UK:

immigrant workers in more precarious private (both formal and informal) employment and directly through the households: worse working hours, more flexible shifts, more broad task descriptions, more extra hours

Italy:

24/7 live-in work arrangements, work without contracts, unspecified tasks, lack of food, accommodation and privacy

Poland

lack of official contracts, unspecified tasks

Demand on the care job market:

specific form of demand (Ruhs and Anderson): a need for workers who would take a job on substandard wage and employment conditions, unacceptable for the native workers.

Recommendations: care, migration and employment policiesNational governments: simultaneous problems linked to ageing,

shrinking of the working population, skills shortage and a demand of (immigrant) cheap labour in certain sectors

Care as a dignified job:- Development of a system of quality control over the services and

work conditions in the sector- Creation of employment incentives and professional opportunities

for care workers- Keep the job standards and fair working conditions! Thus care

work sector remains open for the native workforce as well- Ban 24 / 7 live-in work arrangements- Eliminate difference in working conditions between migrants and

local care-workers

Thanks for your attention!

9 April 2014, Bonn

Attila Bartha,Olena Fedyuk and Violetta Zentai