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Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care pp 23–37Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Intersections of Migrant Care Work: An Overview

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the significance of the movement of female migrants into care work in richer countries. Williams offers a way of understanding the complexities and inequalities of this phenomenon in terms of its global reach, its variations across countries and regions, and its interpersonal practices. Using research in the chapters of the book as illustrations, she argues for the importance of studying the intersections within these macro, meso and micro levels as well as the connections across them. This framing enables a consideration of both short-term and long-term strategies for social justice to meet the multiple personal, structural and geo-political inequalities associated with care migration and the crises of which they are a part.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More recent figures show a differential impact of the global financial and economic crisis and project the trend towards closing the gap between male and female employment levelling off and increasing in some regions. The gap increased in South Asia, East Asia, Central and Southeastern Europe and the Russian Commonwealth (ILO 2012, Table 4:17)

  2. 2.

    Razavi and Staab (2012) call this “the political and social economy of care” (my emphasis).

  3. 3.

    Reliance on doctor and nurse migration is commonplace across many welfare states (Yeates 2009). For example in 2009 in the UK, 23 percent of nurses were foreign-born (Cangiano et al. 2009). The highest employment rates for foreign-born people in health and community services in 2004–2005 was 18.6 percent in Sweden and 24.2 percent in Norway (OECD 2006, 57).

  4. 4.

    This is the slogan of the National Domestic Workers Network, a US organization.

  5. 5.

    While general international migration started to slow down a little after 2007 (OECD-UNDESA 2013), at the same time refugee migration began to accelerate. There were 11.7 million refugees under the UNHCR’s mandate in 2013, 1.2 million more than the previous year (UNHCR 2013).

  6. 6.

    In the UK, for example, rules introduced in 2014 prevented migrant workers from claiming the housing benefit or job seekers’ allowance (a benefit for people who are out of work) for six months after entry and then only on proof of a habitual residence test. By 2016, France, Belgium and the Netherlands had banned the full-face veil worn by Muslim women and some cities in Switzerland, Spain and Italy followed suit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Fiona Williams

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  1. Fiona Williams
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Correspondence to Fiona Williams .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Maryland , College Park, Maryland, USA

    Sonya Michel

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ito Peng

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Williams, F. (2017). Intersections of Migrant Care Work: An Overview. In: Michel, S., Peng, I. (eds) Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55085-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55086-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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