Decent Care Work? Transnational Home Care Arrangements

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland the 24-hour care is developing within the welfare state systems into an accepted way to bridge gaps in care where demographic change poses new challenges while former arrangements for care and work, for example within the family, between the generations and between the genders, are eroding. The project is a study of the transnational recruitment by home care agencies of, usually female, migrant carers for employment as live-ins in private households. The thesis is that under the given working and employment conditions, requirements and expectations of good care and good work are in latent or manifest contradiction to each other, and that the way in which those involved deal with these contradictions influence the organisation of transnational home care arrangements in the three welfare states. In the global cities of Frankfurt/M., Vienna and Zurich care agencies increasingly are offering workforce and services what allows the project to take their activities for examples to study the German, Austrian and Swiss case of 24-hour care. The project tracks worker recruitment by home care agencies in the sending countries and follows the migrant 24-hour carers into the households. Expert interviews with representatives of the agencies explore the services, the recruitment, qualification, contracts and work of the 24-hour carers and the expectations of the households. In episodic interviews the care receivers and their relatives, the migrant 24-hour carers and their relatives talk about their requirements and expectations of good care and good work, the work in the private households, the justification and legitimation of the work and care arrangements, the negotiation of the conditions of work and care between these groups of actors, the contradictions and conflicts occurring in these processes. Here for the first time research approaches and perspectives focussing legitimate expectations of decent work are used to investigate the 24-hour care in the private household where the expectations of decent care as well are of high relevance. This is also the first research investigating which negotiation processes take place between the participating groups of actors in the mobile field of transnational home care arrangements, between the country of origin and the destination country, between care agencies and private households. The project sheds light on transnational home care arrangements, to understand their embedding within the welfare statehood of the three destination countries, to compare their commonalities and differences, and to analyse which requirements and expectations of good care work come to bear, are breached, or cast doubt on this arrangement altogether.

Senior home care is more and more provided by the market and brokering agencies offer their services. The trinational project "Decent Care Work? Transnational Home Care Arrangements" (http://decent-care-work.net/) investigates live-in care in Austria, Germany and Switzerland providing care by care givers primarily coming from Eastern Europe and working and living in the household of the care-recipients. Regime- and policy-analyses and website-analyses of the agencies' advertisement of their services present detailed comparisons of the three models: posted work (GER), self-employment (AT) and employment (CH). It shows how they are embedded in the respective care regime, which care services are provided and take shape with regard to the economic and welfare gaps between Western, Central and Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the project demonstrates how social inequalities and imbalances of power matter and the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the care arrangement. The qualitative in-depth country and case studies have allowed all involved parties to get a word in: stakeholders, NGOs, government regulatory bodies, representatives of agencies, carers, care recipients, relatives and their organizations. They revealed the requirements for and demands on live-in care raised by the different people/groups involved, the extent to which these are met, what problems and conflicts arise, and the ways in which the latter are addressed. One finding in all country studies is a fundamental contradiction inherent in agency-brokered live-in care, namely that it promises to deliver high-quality services without being able to ensure decent working conditions. The Austrian case demonstrates how this contradiction concerns the live-in care arrangement and leads to its ongoing contestation although it has been established as a stable pillar of the care regime. The project gives insights into the negotiation and regulation of the self-employment model, the services of the agencies - offers, recruitment, matching, placement - and the working conditions in the households. Despite increasing formalization, standardization and professionalization of live-in care the informal negotiation of the arrangement remains important and social inequalities and relations of power play an important role. Furthermore, the country study shows how stakeholders, agencies, NGOs reflect on the given provision of live-in care and alternative models. Finally, in light of the pandemic changes of live-in care are considered with regard to agencies' tasks and strategies as well as working conditions of care workers. The project results are of interest for labor and welfare, migration and gender studies and research on care as well as with regard to the societal and socio-political organization of care.