Years of the research: 2013
Country: USA
Language: Hungarian
Keywords:
Abstract:
The shortage in the care system and the social and economic constraints of the sending communities lead to the formation of a very special base for the care market. The migrant care workers enter the care system in a special way. The residential care work performed by them is at the intersection of family work, professional job and servant service. The research aims to reveal the East Europeans participation in the global care chain: organization of the care migration, contribution to the care regime as skilled and unskilled workers, advantages and disadvantages of working in the domestic sector, reproduction of gender division of labour, and consequences of the massive female migration.
Researchers:
Type of research: international
Target group: Hungarian care givers and employers in the USA.
Sample:
I conducted interviews with 15 person, but I observed a larger community.
Aims/Objectives/Background:
The research aims to discover complex international migration processes and to interpret the phenomenon of the migrant care workers in a complex way. There are more questions which need to be revealed: organization of the care migration as a social and individual strategy, contribution to the social security system and medical care as skilled and not-skilled workers, advantages and disadvantages (risks) of working in the domestic sector without institutional and formal protection, reproduction of the gender division of labour, and the consequences of the massive female migration in the sending communities.
Findings/outcome/conclusion/research questions:
The migrant care workers enter the care system in a very special way. They contribute to the social and medical care assistance in a significant measure; however the live-in care work does not mean professional work either for the employers, or for the employees. The very immediate fact that the majority of the migrant care workers do not have the training required for the care duties shows that being skilled or unskilled in care work has no relevance in the selection mechanisms – either from the point of view of the employers’ selection, or from the point of view of the women in the decision to enter the care domain. The migrant care workers perform their activity at the interface of the explicit and implicit expectations expressed by and attributed to the employers on the one side, and on the other side the norms acquired in the sending community which is in the majority of the cases more traditional than the receiving country. The personal experiences in care duties within their own family network and their familialistic models and norms seem to play a much more import role. Without a professional protocol the concept of what care work comprises is revealed during the activity itself.
Financed by: Fulbright
Contact person: Tünde Turai, tturai@yahoo.com
Copyright
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