Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T17:41:39.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Legitimising the care market: the social recognition of migrant care workers in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

MARTA CORDINI  and
COSTANZO RANCI
MARTA CORDINI
Affiliation:
Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Polytechnic of Milan, Milan, Italy email: [email protected]
COSTANZO RANCI
Affiliation:
Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Polytechnic of Milan, Milan, Italy email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The sizeable presence of migrant care workers in the private care market in many European countries is confirmed by several studies that have explained the phenomenon through functional arguments, stressing the economic convenience of transnational markets and the crucial role played by public regulation. This paper focuses instead on the public and institutional discourses that have contributed to legitimising this private care market, characterised by the worsening of employment conditions and the decrease in care quality. The main argument of this paper is that the social recognition of these workers provides the public with the new concepts and rationales that determine the actual shape of the private care market.

Migrant care workers are usually, compared to other migrant workers, more welcome in the host society and less targeted by xenophobic attitudes, especially where their labour helps to meet a lack of public provision as is happening in Southern European countries. Nevertheless, their rights are not fully granted either as citizens or as workers: basic requirements in this migrant care market include for instance reduced wages, great flexibility, and informal contracts.

Our hypothesis is tested through the reconstruction of the public regulation and a content analysis of the public discourse that has accompanied this regulation for ten years (2002–2012) in Italy. The two main national newspapers have been taken into account. This analysis provides evidence on how market dynamics have been shaped by a deliberate political construction, which has relieved governments of the task of finding a public solution to care needs and has relegated migrant care workers to a subordinate social position, which is functional in making the care market work.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 91 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrosini, M. (2013), ‘Immigration in Italy: Between economic acceptance and political rejection’. Journal of international migration and integration, 14 (1): 175–194.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2010), ‘Migration, Immigration Controls and the fashioning of precarious workers’, Work, Employment and Society, 24 (2): 300–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beland, D. (2015), ‘Ideas and Social Policy: An Institutionalist Perspective’, Social Policy and Administration, vol. 39, 1: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettio, F., Simonazzi, A. and Villa, P. (2006), ‘Change in care regimes and female migration: the ‘care drain’ in the Mediterranean’, Journal of European Social Policy, 16: 271–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettio, F. and Solinas, G. (2009), ‘Which European model for elderly care? Equity and cost-effectiveness in home based care in three European countries’. Working paper 609, Dipartimento di Economia Politica, Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia. February 2009.Google Scholar
Bettio, F. and Verashchagina, A. (2010), Long-Term Care for the elderly. Provisions and providers in 33 European countries, EGGE Report 2010, European Commission and Fondazione G. Brodolini, Roma.Google Scholar
Burau, V., Zechner, M., Dahl, H.M. and Ranci, C. (2016), ‘The Political Construction of Elder Care Markets: Comparing Denmark, Finland and Italy’, in Social Policy and Administration, published online 1 March 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cangiano, A., Shutes, I., Spencer, S. and Leeson, G. (2009), Migrant Care Workers in Ageing Societies: Research Findings in the United Kingdom, ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
CENSIS (2004), 38° Rapporto sulla Situazione Sociale del Paese/2004, Rome.Google Scholar
Chaloff, J. (2008), ‘Mismatches in the Formal Sector, Expansion of the Informal Sector: Immigration of Health Professionals to Italy’, OECD Health Working Papers, No. 34, OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
Chiatti, C., Di Rosa, M., Barbabella, F., Greco, C., Melchiorre, M.G., Principi, A., Santini, S. and Lamura, G. (2013), ‘Migrant care work for elderly households: trends and developments in Italy on the background of global developments’, in Troisi, J. and Von Kondratowicz, H.-J (eds.), Ageing in the Mediterranean, Bristol, Policy Press, pp. 235–256 (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, G. (2012) ‘Long-Term Care Italian Policies: A Case of Inertial Institutional Change’, in Ranci, C. and Pavolini, E. (eds.), Reforms in Long-Term Care Policies in Europe. Investigating Institutional Change and Social Impacts, New York, Springer, pp. 221–241.Google Scholar
Daly, M. (2002), ‘Care as a Good for Social Policy’, Journal of Social Policy, 31 (2): 251–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, M. and Lewis, J. (2000), ‘The concept of social care and the analysis of contemporary welfare states’, The British Journal of Sociology, 51 (2): 281–298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Da Roit, B., Ferrer, G. and Moreno Fuentes, F.J. (2013), ‘The Southern European migrant based care model: long term care and employment trajectories in Italy and Spain’, European Societies, 15 (4): 577–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Da Roit, B. and Le Bihan, B. (2011), ‘Cash-for-Care Schemes and the Changing Role of Elderly People's Informal Caregivers in France and Italy’, in Pfau-Effinger, B., Rostgaard, T. (eds.) Care between Work and Welfare in European Societies, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 177–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Santo, P. and Ceruzzi, F. (2010), Migrant care workers in Italy. A case study, Rome/Vienna, Interlinks.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1999), Social Foundations of Postindustrial economies, Oxford, Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujisawa, R. and Colombo, F. (2009), ‘The Long-Term Care Workforce: Overview and Strategies to Adapt Supply to a Growing Demand’, Oecd Health Working Papers, No. 44.Google Scholar
Gori, C. (2012), ‘Home care in Italy: a system on the move, in the opposite direction to what we expect’, Health and Social Care in the Community, 20 (3): 255–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grootegoed, E. and van Dijk, D. (2012), ‘The Return of the Family? Welfare State Retrenchment and Client Autonomy in Long-Term Care’, Journal of Social Policy, 41 (4): 677–694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, P. A. (1993), ‘Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: the case of economic policymaking in Britain’, Comparative politics, 25 (3): 275–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IREF (2007), Il welfare “fatto in casa”, Research report, Roma.Google Scholar
Kingdon, J. W. and Thurber, J. A. (1984), Agendas, alternatives, and public policies, Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Le Bihan, B. and Martin, C. (2012), ‘Diversification of care policy measures supporting older people: towards greater flexibility for carers?’, European Journal of Ageing, 9 (2): 141–150.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Le Grand, J. (2009), The other invisible hand: Delivering public services through choice and competition, Princeton, Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leon, M. (2010), Migration and Care Work in Spain: the Domestic Service Revisited, Social Policy and Society, 9 (3): 409–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leon, M. (ed.) (2014), The transformation of care in European societies, Palgrave Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, J. and West, A. (2014), ‘Re-Shaping Social Care Services for Older People in England: Policy Development and the Problem of Achieving “Good Care”’, Journal of Social Policy, 43 (1): 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lutz, H. and Palenga-Mollenbeck, E. (2012), ‘Care Workers, Care Drain, and Care Chains: Reflections on Care, Migration and Citizenship’, Social Politics, 19 (1): 15–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A. and Taylor, J. E. (1993), ‘Theories of international migration: a review and appraisal’, Population and development review, 149 (3): 431–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasquinelli, S. and Rusmini, G. (2008), Badanti: la nuova generazione. Caratteristiche e tendenze del lavoro privato di cura, Milano, Istituto per la ricerca sociale Google Scholar
Pasquinelli, S. and Rusmini, G. (eds) (2013), Badare non basta. Il lavoro di cura: attori, progetti, politiche, Roma, Ediesse.Google Scholar
Pavolini, E. and Ranci, C. (2008), ‘Restructuring the welfare State: Reforms in long-term care in Western European countries’, Journal of European Social Policies, 18 (3): 246–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piore, M.J. (1980), ‘Comment’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 33 (3): 312–14.Google Scholar
Ranci, C. and Pavolini, E. (eds.) (2012), Reforms in Long-Term Care Policies in Europe. Investigating Institutional Change and Social Impacts, New York, Springer.Google Scholar
Ranci, C. and Sabatinelli, S. (2014), ‘Long-term and child care policies in Italy between Familism and Privatisation’, in León, M. (ed.), The Transformation of Care in European Societies, Basingstone, Palgrave McMillan, pg. 233–55.Google Scholar
Riva, E. and Zanfrini, L. (2013), ‘The Labor Market Condition of Immigrants in Italy: The case of Lombardy’, Revue Interventions économiques, 47: 2–26.Google Scholar
Rostgaard, T., Chiatti, C. and Lamura, G. (2011), ‘Care Migration: the South-North Divide of Long-term Care’, in Pfau-Effinger, B. and Rostgaard, T. (eds.) Care Between Work and Welfare in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 129–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sciortino, G. (2013), ‘Immigration in Italy: Subverting the Logic of Welfare Reform?’, in Jurado, E. and Brochmann, G. (eds.), Europe's immigration challenge. Reconciling work, welfare and mobility, London, I.B. Tauris, pg. 77–94.Google Scholar
Shutes, I. (2012), ‘The Employment of Migrant Workers in Long-Term Care: Dynamics of Choice and Control’, Journal of Social Policy, 41 (1): 43–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shutes, I. and Chiatti, C. (2013), ‘Migrant labour and the marketisation of care for older people: The employment of migrant care workers by families and service providers’, Journal of European Social Policy, 22 (4): 392–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simonazzi, A. and Picchi, S. (2013), ‘Affordability of care and quality of work. Policies to reduce irregular employment in elderly care’, in Bettio, F., Plantenga, J. and Smith, M. (eds), Gender and the European Labour Market, Abington, Routledge, pp. 108–130.Google Scholar
Theobald, H. (2012), ‘Home-based care provision within the German welfare mix’, Health and Social care in the Community, 20 (3): 274–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Hooren, F. J. (2008), ‘Welfare provision beyond national boundaries. The politics of migration and elderly care in Italy’, Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, 3: 87–113.Google Scholar
Van Hooren, F. J. (2011), Caring migrants in European welfare regimes: the policies and practices of migrant labour filling the gaps in social care, European University Institute.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (1999), ‘Good-enough Principles for Welfare’, Journal of Social Policy, 28 (4): 667–687 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, F. (2012), ‘Converging variations in migrant care work in Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy, 22: 363–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar