A Crucial Testing Ground

Abstract

European societies are currently facing serious challenges in responding to a large and growing demand of long-term care services. To a varying, but overall substantial, extent this increasing demand is satisfied through migration, with migrant women workers representing everywhere a considerable share of the workforce available in the care sector. In this paper two key questions arising from these observations will be addressed: What has been the specific role of migration in addressing labour shortages in the care sector across Europe? And, secondly, what are the drivers of the different immigration policy approaches adopted? Drawing on EU-LFS data I will describe the main entry channels of migrant care workers, also distinguished by skill and occupational level, to highlight the specific immigrant labour supply policy mix adopted by national governments. Recent theories of managed migration policies will be critically assessed to ultimately discuss their ability to explain the immigrant labour supply policy mix in the care sector.

Looking for the Best and Brightest? Deservingness Regimes in Italian Labour Migration Management

“…The long‐term demographic implications (Askola, ) of a shrinking workforce for the intergenerational sustainability of the welfare state – in terms of both the current pension system and the costs of elderly care – are key pro‐immigrant arguments recurrent in the public debate. This issue is closely related to the privileged social and political legitimacy which domestic and care workers have enjoyed in the country (Ambrosini, ; Salis, ). This “special” kind of labour – fulfilling the needs of a frail and often impoverished elderly population, provided by (prevalently Christian, European, white) women has especially contributed to claiming and publicly legitimizing (otherwise problematic) legalization gateways which, in practice, have been, often (mis)used by undocumented men (Ambrosini, ; Bonizzoni, ).…”

“…As regards Italy, several characteristics of its labour migration regime challenge the dominant rhetoric of a “best and brightest” competitiveness‐driven frame. Hence it is an interesting “testing ground” (Salis, , ). This article maintains that, despite some recent tentative signs of change towards an increased evaluation of (high) skills as a selection principle explicitly embedded in a competitiveness‐driven frame, in recent decades foreign labour migration management in Italy has largely worked through either unselective or low‐selective back‐and‐front doors.…”

Socio-Economic Predictors of Hiring Live-In Migrant Care Workers to Support Community Dwelling Older Adults with Long-Term Care Needs: Recent Evidence from a Central Italian Region

“…The emergence of the MCW market in Italy can partially be attributed to the use of unregulated cash-for-care allowances [32]. The indennità di accompagnamento (IdA) is the only allowance granted at the national level and is a universal, non-means-tested allowance granted to people with a disability that makes them unable to carry out daily activities without continuing assistance from others [33].…”