In a Minefield of Transnational Social Relations: Filipino Au Pairs between Moral Obligations and Personal Ambitions

Abstract

The au pair scheme, originally meant to promote cultural exchange between countries, has become a popular migrant work arrangement throughout a group of European countries in which neoliberal welfare restructuring has led to declining state-provided care services making families search for private solutions to their care needs (Lutz, 2008a). Even in the Scandinavian countries where the provision of social wel- fare has long been, and still is, the cornerstone of the welfare state, the au pair arrangement has become a popular strategy for the recon- ciliation of paid employment, care for children and domestic work, especially among the middle class (Bikova, 2010, 0ien, 2009, Sollund, 2010a, Stenum, 2010, Platzer, 2010). With an au pair — a young person from a foreign country, aged 18 to 30 years, who lives in the host fam- ily’s home and ‘helps’ with household chores and childcare in exchange for board, lodging and pocket money — well-off European families can sustain their middle-class lifestyles and pursue careers and family lives at the same time.