Change in care regimes and female migration: the ‘care drain’ in the Mediterranean

Abstract

Concern over the need to provide long-term care for an ageing population has stimulated a search for new solutions able to ensure financial viability and a better balance between demand and supply of care. There is at present a great variety of care regimes across industrial countries, with Mediterranean countries forming a distinctive cluster where management of care is overwhelmingly entrusted to the family. In some of these countries elderly care has recently attracted large flows of care migrants, ushering in a new division of labour among family carers (mainly women), female immigrants, and skilled native workers. The article explores the interconnections between the feminization of migration, on the one hand, and ongoing change in the Southern European care regimes, on the other hand. Different strands of the literature are brought together and reviewed to illustrate ongoing developments. One main objective is to identify issues of efficiency, equity and sustainability raised by this new ‘model’ of care. The results of recent surveys on provisions and costs of long-term care are accordingly reviewed to set the stage for discussion on the optimal mix of long-term care provisions in place of traditional family care.

Care regimes and national employment models

“…For migrants with a temporary migratory project, regularisation of their employment position may have little appeal if they can trade it for higher wages. 21 There is evidence that in Italy, with its maturing 'migrant carer model', the grey market has been prompt to exploit this model's greater social acceptance by 'only just' undercutting regular workers 22 , thus skimming the market and threatening once again to squeeze lower-middle income families out of paid care, were it not for monetary transfers and social subsidies (Simonazzi 2006). The duration of the migratory project may also affect the career progression and development of immigrants, because neither the employer nor the workers invest in their training.…”

“…Generally speaking, their presence is higher in those countries with a flourishing informal economy, and they are concentrated in those sectors where the informal economy is most widespread: care and domestic services, hotels and catering, tourism, construction, and agriculture (UWT 2007). The informal economies preceded undocumented migration and acted as a strong pull factor; but subsequently the two processes reinforced one another, thus helping to strengthen the process of immigrant labour casualisation (Bettio, Simonazzi and Villa 2006). 15 Most countries (with few exceptions, such as the US and France) link citizenship to ethnicity rather than place of birth (OECD 2005a).…”

Negotiating User Preferences, Discrimination, and Demand for Migrant Labour in Long-Term Care

“…However, the role of migrant labor is located in varying institutional contexts in terms of the organization of care. In Southern European countries, such as Italy and Spain, where the public provision of care services for older people is more limited, migrant workers have been employed in the household to supplement the unpaid care of the family (Bettio et al 2006;Leó n 2010). In contrast, in countries such as the UK and Ireland, where the provision of long-term care services is more developed, albeit with significant variation and shortfalls in provision, migrant workers have been increasingly recruited in the context of market reforms to public provision.…”

Condiciones laborales de migrantes bolivianas que realizan trabajo de cuidado en Iquique

“…Cuando una mujer emigra a un país para cuidar a los hijos de otra mujer, dejando a los suyos en su país de origen a cargo de otra persona, se habla de una cadena global de cuidado (Pérez Orozco, 2007). La literatura internacional alude a este fenómeno con el concepto de "fuga de cuidados", en tanto las cuidadoras emigran de su sociedad de origen a otro país (Bettio, Simonazzi y Villa, 2006), produciéndose paralelamente una circulación de cuidados (Baldassar y Merla, 2014) en esa sociedad de origen, al asumir otros miembros del hogar la función de prestación de cuidados.…”