The Journey to Teruel: Immigrant Women’s Pathways to the Domestic Sector in Rural Spain

Abstract

This study aimed to deepen the understanding of the motivations and pathways that lead immigrant women to pursue employment in the home-based, elderly care sector in the Spanish countryside. To this end, we examine the individual perspectives of several foreign-born women engaged in this occupation across various small villages in Teruel, a sparsely populated province in eastern Spain. Relying predominantly on the aspirations–capabilities framework, we make the case that employment in the sector is on many occasions exploitative, but that it also may provide an often-needed opportunity for migrants to relocate to the Global North. In the context of our study we argue that these processes of relocation showcased elements of both precarious and improvement migration, and that they were driven primarily by limited economic prospects in many of the interviewees’ countries of origin. Additionally, we explore the relationship between constraints on international mobility and the aspirations of the study participants to improve their life circumstances by examining their migration pathways, the challenges they faced as newcomers, and the specifics of securing jobs and establishing new lives in the Spanish countryside.