Conference Agenda

In face of the contemporary transformation of welfare regimes in Europe „Home Care for Sale“ investigates the brokerage of senior home care. While the increasing placement of domestic services in private households by labor, care and migration brokers is a global phenomenon, the European case is a unique one: embedded in the respective welfare, employment, gender and migration regime, the brokering of senior home care has become an established and stable pillar in European care regimes. In order to face demographic changes and the resulting care gaps in ageing societies, we are currently experiencing a trend towards forced commodification of migrant labor. This collection contains the profound analysis of this transformation, written by experts on migration, labor and care brokerage. Focal points are the increasing marketization of senior home care as part of transnational care and values chains; the investigation of transnational mobility and border regimes; the analysis of the private household as a difficult workplace; and finally insights into care/ labor disputes, struggles and initiatives to change this exploitative mode of care provision. Case studies and comparisons show how - in addition to care chains from and in the Global South - European East-West migration has become a stable pattern in closing care gaps. In-depth studies give insights into this new mode of care provision by showing how live-in work and care arrangements are negotiated and organized by all parties involved. This panel discusses senior home care brokerage as part of the contemporary political economy of labor and care migration and as an intrinsic stage of the „next great transformation“.