Abstract
This chapter analyzes the career paths of care workers after leaving care work. The live-in 24-hour personal home care work represents a typical example of a secondary labor market—a low-prestige job with limited career prospects. We find that retirement was the exit strategy for less than a third of the 24-hour personal home care workers. More than half of the care workers found employment after their return to Slovakia. However, well in line with the dual labor market theory, long exposure to care work in Austria is not helpful for career prospects back home. Carers spending five and more years in Austria have a higher risk of working in a less prestigious job than the one they used to have before they left.
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Notes
- 1.
The occasions when 24-hour care work acts as a stepping stone for a future career in Austria were described in the previous chapter.
- 2.
The retirement age of women in Austria is 60Â years. A minimum of 15Â years of contribution in a gainful employment is required, however, up to eight years of this period can consist of child-raising periods. The retirement age of women in Slovakia is 62, however, depending on the number of children, women have an earlier retirement age until the end of the current transition period in 2024 (OECD, 2013).
- 3.
This includes situations when care work in Austria was abandoned to be able to look after their parents back in Slovakia (see also Rogoz & Sekulová, n.d.).
- 4.
The model is available upon request from the authors.
- 5.
As mentioned, over 80% of care workers in both cAreworkers surveys declare no interest in permanent settlement in Austria.
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Bahna, M., Sekulová, M. (2019). Leaving Care Work: Career Prospects in a Secondary Labor Market. In: Crossborder Care. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97028-8_6
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