Precarious Care Labor: Contradictory Work Regulations and Practices for Au Pairs in Sweden

Anving, Terese; Eldén, Sara

doi:10.19154/njwls.v6i4.5611

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…This literature focuses on aspects such as working hours, tasks, and relationships to employers and to the workers' families in their country of origin (e.g., Parreñas 2001;Anderson 2002;Piquero-Ballescas 2009;Liebelt 2011). Like a growing number of other researchers trying to understand the phenomenon of au pairs (see, e.g., Øien 2009;Sollund 2010;Stenum 2010;Anving & Eldén 2016), we see clear parallels from this body of literature to the situation of Filipino au pairs in the Nordic countries. Au pairs can be seen as one of many groups of disadvantaged and exploited migrant domestic workers from the global south (Bikova 2015).…”

Section: Literature Review: Migrant Domestic Workers' Organizing and supporting

confidence: 76%

“…Furthermore, migrant domestic workers, who are most often female and from the global south, are positioned at the bottom of gender and racial hierarchies, which adds to the devaluation of their work (see, e.g., Gutierrez-Rodríguez 2010). Again, clear parallels can be drawn to the situation of the predominantly female au pairs from the Philippines, whose work has been described as positioned in a dichotomy between work and nonwork (cultural exchange) (Anving & Eldén 2016).…”

Section: Literature Review: Migrant Domestic Workers' Organizing and mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, in relation to both taxes and holidays, the arrangement is considered an employer/employee relationship and is subject to the applicable Danish rules (nyidanmark.dk). Au pairs and the status of their work are thus subject to contradictory expectations and regulations in Denmark, a situation also seen, for example, in Sweden (Anving & Eldén 2016). And au pairs' work is not considered ordinary work -even though both au pairs and host families tend to see it as such, and parts of the legislation treat it as work (Hansen 2010: 223;SFI 2013: 10).…”

Section: Work or Cultural Exchange?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hard-working Heroes or Curious Students? - Au pair Positioning, Organizing, and Negotiation

Hansen

Pedersen²

2019

NJWLS

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The precarious position and poor working conditions of au pairs in the Nordic and other western labor markets are well documented. Furthermore, research on au pairs and migrant domestic workers emphasizes many obstacles to their organizing (e.g., in trade unions) and negotiation to improve their working conditions. Using an ethnographic study of Filipino au pairs in Denmark as an illustrative case, we supplement this previous research by presenting an analytical approach inspired by governmentality studies.This approach highlights the complex transnational interplay of migration policies and practices affecting Filipino au pairs’ positioning in the Danish labor market and contributes to exploring how this positioning relates to their prospects for negotiating and organizing.We suggest that with a close examination of the often contradictory and multifaceted positioning of migrant workers in transnational policy fields, not only obstacles but also possibilities for negotiation and organizing to improve working conditions will become visible

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Section: Literature Review: Migrant Domestic Workers' Organizing and supporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Literature Review: Migrant Domestic Workers' Organizing and mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Work or Cultural Exchange?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hard-working Heroes or Curious Students? - Au pair Positioning, Organizing, and Negotiation

Hansen

Pedersen²

2019

NJWLS

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“…This reform was highly contested in Sweden and has been described accordingly by Gavanas (2010): "The Swedish market for domestic service is expanding as a result of welfare state cutbacks, as well as privatization of public care, deregulation, internationalization and flexibilization of labour markets" (p. 10). Moreover, as shown by Anving and Eldén (2016), a consequence has been that paying for domestic services has been more prevalent in wealthy households. This shows that though the RUT deduction was argued to be a tool for gender equality, its effect has been to produce class and race differences between women, and also between women and men, since it is still mostly women that do the household work.…”

Section: Gender Equality In the Swedish Welfare State Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“It Is So Swedish That You Have to Work”. Returning Swedish Migrant Women’s Negotiations of Gender Equality and Heterosexuality

Sohl

2019

NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research

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Notions of gender equality are strongly linked to the Swedish selfimage. This article explores returning Swedish migrant women's negotiations of heterosexual gender equality ideals based on their experiences of being housewives to middle-and upper-class men with work contracts abroad. From fieldwork conducted within two networks for returning Swedes, the article provides an analysis of the ways in which the women talk about work, gender equality, and domestic workers. The analysis of the women's accounts of gender relations shows that different ways of doing femininity are central in their narratives. By using the concepts "emphasized femininity" and "gender-equal femininity" the article highlights the different forms of femininity that can be traced in the women's narratives. Drawing from the empirical examples, it is shown that the women are troubled by Swedish gender equality ideals and express a feeling of not "fitting in" after returning to Sweden. I suggest that the women's articulations of not "fitting in" to (imagined) gender-equal Sweden tend to downplay the fact that they still have advantages that assist with "fitting in" from social positions such as class, whiteness, and (hetero)sexuality: positions which may create space for negotiating social norms in Sweden.

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“…There are a number of countries which have partially regulated au pair sectors. For example, in countries which are members of the European Economic Area, which enables free movement of labour between member states, au pairs from outside the EEA will tend to be on visas which impose certain conditions and may offer some protections, whilst au pairs who are EEA nationals are not covered by these rules (Anving andEldén, 2016, Calleman 2010). Then there are countries which seem to acknowledge the existence of au pairs whilst having no regulation of this category at all.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, work, non-work and the invisible migrant: au pairs in contemporary Britain

Cox

2018

Palgrave Commun

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Campaigns by Uber drivers, Deliveroo riders and McDonalds workers have highlighted problems with the new world of platform economies and zero-hour contracts. At the same time, the Brexit process has opened up debates about the UK's dependence on low-waged workers from the EU. Together these trends raise questions about who is going to do low-paid, labour intensive work in the future and what their rights will be. Within these debates, au pairs have been largely invisible despite the fact that they are EU workers who are depended upon by perhaps 100,000 families in the UK, and the fact that their status excludes them from protections available to other workers. This paper explores the current UK situation to examine how this invisibility is related to the gendering of the work au pairs do. While traditionally masculine jobs, such as construction work, have tended to be reimagined as self-employment, au pairing is an example of the way that traditionally feminine tasks are produced by policy discourses as 'help'. Despite this invisibility au pairs do large amounts of work, on average working 37.8 h per week for 'pocket money' at about half the level of the National Minimum Wage and they are increasingly taking on tasks, such as the care for very young children, that would have been done by qualified nannies in the past. In addition to the current debates over the rights of workers in new 'platform' economies, and the possible problems arising from Brexit, we need a broader conversation about work, what it is and how gendered assumptions inform government policy and curtail the rights of workers.

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Precarious Care Labor: Contradictory Work Regulations and Practices for Au Pairs in Sweden

Abstract: This paper focuses on the rules and regulations relating to au pair work in

Cited by 15 publications

References 13 publications

Hard-working Heroes or Curious Students? - Au pair Positioning, Organizing, and Negotiation

Hard-working Heroes or Curious Students? - Au pair Positioning, Organizing, and Negotiation

“It Is So Swedish That You Have to Work”. Returning Swedish Migrant Women’s Negotiations of Gender Equality and Heterosexuality

Gender, work, non-work and the invisible migrant: au pairs in contemporary Britain

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