Abstract
This chapter focuses on migrant women working in the care sector in Spain. The care and domestic work has been the front door into labor market for the majority of migrant women in this country. In this sector the only qualification required is “to be a woman”. The author explores the process of identity construction of Ecuadorian women in the care sector. To this end, the different elements involved in the development of migrant women “domestic” careers are analyzed from three analytic dimensions: culture, structure, and agency. The author argues that the processes of identity re-construction experienced by migrant women should be analyzed from an intersectional perspective, which takes into account their different position related to their gender, race, and class hierarchies, both in the sending and receiving societies.
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Notes
- 1.
These interviews were conducted between 2009 and 2012. The informants were of different ages (between 20 and 65), civil statuses (e.g., single, married, widowed, divorced), family situations (e.g., children in country of origin, children in Spain, no children, grandchildren), social backgrounds, labor trajectories and studies (from no studies at all to postgraduate degrees, along with a highly diverse set of professions and activities). They came from different parts of Ecuador and immigrated to Spain between the late 1990s and 2006. Some highlight dollarization (2000) as their principal motivation, but there were also other factors prompting emigration. At the time of the interviews, they also had different migratory statuses.
- 2.
From 1996 to 2006, 6.9 million jobs were created in Spain, at a rate higher than in the European Union (EU)—54 % for Spain and 13.7 % for the EU (Rocha et al. 2008, p. 189).
- 3.
The care regime denotes the extent to which a country relies on the state, voluntary workers or the private market for care; whether provision is accessed through services or through cash payments or tax benefits; and whether and how policies facilitate maternity, paternity or care leave (Bettio and Plantenga 2004). It also refers to cultures and practices, policy and popular discourses, social relations of power and inequality, and forms of contestation (Williams 2010, p. 390).
- 4.
The interviews were conducted in Spanish, and the author translated all of the text fragments presented here.
- 5.
Atypical employment is any job that differs from the standard of permanent and full-time contract work.
- 6.
The Catalogue lists occupations for which the Public Employment Services find few candidates to cover job vacancies. The Catalogue is specifically elaborated for each Spanish province and is revisited every three months. http://www.sepe.es/contenido/empleo_formacion/catalogo_ocupaciones_dc/af0401.html [last accessed March 2, 2014].
- 7.
This national program organizes the migration of foreign workers from their countries of origin to Spain http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_datos/Derogadas/r5-rd2393-2004.t5.html [last accessed March 2, 2014].
- 8.
See the Royal Decree 1620/2011, available at http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2011/11/17/pdfs/BOE-A-2011-17975.pdf [last accessed March 2, 2014].
- 9.
See the Royal Decree 1424/1985, available at http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/1985/08/13/pdfs/A25617-25618.pdf [last accessed March 2, 2014], and the Special Regime of Social Security (1969), available at http://www.ccoo.cat/activitatsdiverses%5Cconvenis%5Cempleadas_del_hogar%5Cdecreto_2346.pdf [last accessed March 2, 2014].
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Acknowledgments
This chapter has been developed within the framework of two research projects in which the author is “TRAVIDA: New models of Life and Work in the Information Society: The case of the large metropolitan outskirts, 2008–2011” (Ref. CSO 2008-04002), funded by Spanish Science Minister, and “WOMINTRA: Women in Transit” (Ref. 06/10), funded by the Spanish Women’s Institute and ESF. The author thanks everyone who has made it possible.
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Moré, P. (2015). When Your CV is “To Be a Latina Woman”: Re-articulation of Stereotypes and Re-construction of Identity of Ecuadorian Women Working in the Care Sector. In: La Barbera, M. (eds) Identity and Migration in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10127-9_12
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