Understanding migrants' lives and work:

Key findings and methodological lessons from a study on migrant

elder care workers

Virpi Timonen and Martha Doyle

School of Social Work and Social Policy Research Seminar11th February 2009

Project carried out in association with the MILES project funded by NORFACE.

Outline of Presentation

Background / Rationale / Originality Aims Methods Sample Limitations & Lessons Key Findings Implications: Policy & Research

Background / Rationale

Ireland rapidly transformed from a ‘sending’ into a ‘receiving’ country - early stage of a heavy and growing reliance on migrant workers in some sectors.

Ireland one of only three EU countries to offer unrestricted access to workers from 10 new EU countries -- experiences of ‘new’ European vs. non-EU migrants.

Care system that is moving away from a heavy reliance on families towards a more mixed system where different types of formal care gaining in importance.

Rationale / Originality

While there is a steadily growing corpus of research focused on professional / medical migrant workers in the health and social care sectors there is little research on non-medical (migrant) carer workers.

Paucity of literature on the relationship of migrant care workers with their work colleagues & care recipients.

Lack of / inadequate social protection among migrant workers is sometimes argued to constitute a ‘new social risk’; gaining new insights into how this group manages risk, both privately and with the help of social policies.

Aims: The study sought to:

Scope migrant carers’ perceptions of carework and explore possible inter-group differences between European, South Asian and African carers

Gain an understanding of migrant care workers’ relationships with care recipients, colleagues and employers

Explore how migrants’ reconcile their work and (transnational) family care responsibilities

Gain an insight into migrant care workers’ understandings, experiences and aspirations regarding their social protection and the Irish welfare state

Methods

Exploratory study

Subject matter not easily quantifiable, no sampling frame -opt for qualitative methods

Initially decided against using employer gate-keepers

To combat over-dependence on small number of networks respondents accessed via 20+ migrant organisations

When this and networking supplies dried out, adopted the employer route.

40 semi-structured interviews with care workers across 3 care sectors

Sample Recruitment

€30 gift voucher as incentive Informal care sector - Importance of

gatekeepers and snowballing Some groups (South Asian) easier to access

than others ‘Over-research’ of African community Some organisations wary of further research

– cynical about whether research will bring any benefits to the community

Language difficulties – in two instances carers requested that interviews be completed together because of language difficulties

Sample – Region / Sector

Region of origin

Formal Sector

‘Grey’ care-labour market

Europe 11 2

South Asia 11 5

Africa 10 1

Total 32 8

Sample – Region / Type of employment

Note: Except for four male institutional care workers (3 Filipino and 1 African), all interviewees were female.

Region FormalResidential

FormalDomiciliary

FormalLive-in domiciliary

‘Grey’Live-in

domiciliary

‘Grey’Domiciliary

Africa 4 6 1South Asia 6 5 5

Europe 7 4 1 1

Total 17 10 5 6 2

Limitations & Lessons

Strong possibility of social desirability bias: esp. with regard to relationship with care recipients; receipt of benefits

Inherent difficulties in researching the ‘grey’ labour market

Small sample size required us to cluster migrants by broad region of origin (Africa, Europe, South Asia); unable to explore whether intra-group differences existed within these categories.

Non-probability sampling & small sample size - clearly not possible to claim that the findings representative of the migrant care workforce in Ireland

Would have benefited from closer look at situation in the ‘sending’ country

Would have benefited from a longitudinal approach

Analysis

The framework approach Pope, Ziebland and Mays

(2000). Five stages:

1. Familiarisation with the raw data; 2. Identification of a thematic framework; 3. Indexing of the data while applying the thematic

framework; 4. ‘Charting’ or rearranging the data in line with the

thematic framework;5. Mapping and interpretation of the data with the

use of charts, tables and typologies.

Understanding migrants' lives and work:

Key FindingsDraws on:

Timonen, V. and Doyle, M., In Search of Security: Migrant Workers' Understandings, Experiences and Expectations Regarding 'Social Protection', Journal of Social Policy, 38, (1), 2009

Doyle, M. and Timonen, V., The Different Faces of Care Work: Understanding the Experiences of the Multi-Cultural Care Workforce, Ageing & Society, 29, 2009

Timonen, V. and Doyle, M Caring and Collaborating Across Cultures? Migrant Care Workers’ Relationships with Care Recipients, Colleagues and Employers(being revised for Social Politics)

Doyle, M. and Timonen, V., Obligations, Ambitions, Calculations: Migrant care workers’ negotiation of work, sareer and family responsibility (being revised for European Journal of Women’s Studies)

Experiences of European, South Asian and African carers significantly different: African: racism and discrimination: ‘You meet a lot of them that would make you hate this job, that you can sit down and say oh my God, I hate doing this job, because you might go to people’s houses to help them, but the person you go to, even if they don’t see you they hate you, they say, do this, do that, all things you shouldn’t be doing and when you meet other people that work with them and they say oh, is that what you are doing there, I’ve never been told to do this, then you’d be asking yourself why, sometimes, you say is it because I am Black or something, sometimes the way they would talk to you, the way they would treat you, you would hate yourself’.European: expected mobility:‘So, after a time I found you know a few good places…. Now I’m really good… And always for me it was something funny but something very sad you know I couldn’t find anything in the beginning and now everybody is ‘Oh My God would you like to apply?’ … And now I work with people with disabilities. And it’s very interesting for me and really I like to work with them’.

Key FindingsDifferences in experiences by RoO

Key FindingsDifferences in experiences

by RoO Asian: dependency on employer,

‘I’m getting used to it as they say, ’cause I’m old already, and I’m getting used to it, in terms of kind of other relationships with other people and the work, ’cause if you accept something, you will get used to it, if you don’t really accept, you will never settle, adjusting is only the thing, when you go to a new place.’

N.B. These differences to some extent entangled with sectors from which sampled (see tables on sample composition); also tend to have different legal / citizenship / employment status

→ Does not mean that ethnic characteristics unimportant but rather, that they tend to overlap with factors that create, reinforce and perpetuate (dis-)advantage

Key FindingsRelationships with care

recipients Domiciliary care: close relationships, (mutual) dependency, evidence of racism but usually ‘filtered out’ by client’s initial veto

Institutional care: multiple care recipients, heavy workloads, cognitive impairments; more accounts of racism – these universally ‘understood’ and ascribed to illness, lack of understanding etc.

Social desirability bias, but many lengthy, detailed, heart-felt descriptions of close relationships indicative of genuine affection

Key FindingsRelationships between care

workers Considerable inter-cultural and inter-racial tensions in the horizontal working relationships in institutional care settings

Barriers to communication such as poor language skills, but also from perceived differences in productivity and approaches to work.

Inter-racial tensions sometimes existed between workers of the same nationality.

By and large, the experiences of Irish co-workers was positive, however, there were a number of significant instances where care workers believed that they had been mistreated or deliberately ignored by Irish co-workers.

Key FindingsRelationship with

Managers Institutional settings: respectful, distant, usually amicable but in some cases aggrieved due to constant critique, lack of positive feedback, monitoring, unsafe work practices

Most preferred Irish managers. Exception: those who shared nationality with manager – some apparent nepotism

Domiciliary: infrequent contact with agency managers; flexibility appreciated

Live-in domiciliary: care recipient’s family as de facto ‘managers’: elements of mutual affection, gratitude, but also dependence, exploitation, family-like relationships, complex currency of favours and counter-favours

Migrant CareWorkers

Ambitions

FAMILY

WORK CAREER

Key Findings: Reconciliation of Work and Personal Care Responsibilities

Key Findings: Obligations

Those with co-present children (17) typically worked night-shifts or part-time in order to discharge their care responsibilities toward their children

They relied almost exclusively on informal childcare arrangements

Where the parent(s) was /were in need of care, it was typically provided by siblings who had remained in the country of origin.

Remittance to family members and extended kin:

‘I shoulder everything, because my [estranged] husband never gives anything, so from the house they [children] are renting, from the education, the food allowance, everything they need, and also for my mother, if they get sick, I send over money’

Key Findings:Calculations

Decision to remain in Ireland closely related to family responsibilities and existing networks

Transnational mothers: The negative consequence of the geographical distance were counterbalanced by the improvements in their children’s education and lifestyle

Ten arrived with spouse; the remainder as independent migrants

Networking with migrants varied according to region of origin

Important to find work immediately – ‘the 3 Cs’. ‘Step down’ on career progression ladder – viewed as

temporary stepping stone. For some paid employment of secondary importance ‘

my achievement is my children’.

Long-term aspiration to remain living in Ireland Return home upon retirement:

‘I’m planning to stay here for as long as I’m still able to work, ‘cause even though my children are already finished [their education], I have my brother and sister’s children, that I would like to support and help…if I can take one or two of my children here [to Ireland] I can go back home already, they can support me’

Short-term transient experience – 3- 5years Irrespective desire for personal and occupational

advancement evident However emigration status rendered some

dependent on their employer

Key Findings

Ambitions

Key FindingsUnderstanding of Social

Security Did not conceive social security as being associated with traditional state-based protection

Not of relevance Dissociation – Perhaps result of qualifying periods

which can make access to benefits difficult Security emerged from investments other than

‘traditional’ social security entitlements:‘I came here to get an apartment in Poland…It took two years to buy the apartment. I won’t get a job with the same wages when I go home, it will be a lot lower, but I don’t mind, I will feel a lot more secure since I have my own apartment and some savings’

Instead of relying on the formal benefit structure, many chose to devise their own plans for coping with period of sickness.

Key FindingsExperience of the Irish

Welfare State Almost half had in the past or were at the time of interview receiving one or more social security benefit.

African’s refugee-specific and means tested benefits

South Asian – universal child care benefits Cost and lack of trust as reasons for seeking

health care in CoO Public sector workers afforded more benefits Informal care workers – loosely defined

employment contracts

Small number claim back their PRSI contributions

Saving accounts – generic long-term/crisis/security

Career Progression – long-term residency ‘Hoping’ something won’t happen:

‘I just hope that these things [sickness, disability, unemployment] won’t happen but it does happen so we are not in control of the condition or situation. No matter what we have to accept it, it’s a fact’

Key FindingsExpectations of future social

security

Implications: Policy & Research Future: more unequal and segmented

care workforce? Acknowledging the barriers and obstacles

faced by some populations of care workers

Anti-discriminatory workplaces and practices in the long-term care sector

Strive for a better understanding of the changing profile and needs of both care recipients and their (migrant) caregivers