The European divide: Care politics in Europe

The European Divide: Care Politics in Europe

In my paper I will investigate the European situation of migrant care work - in particular care for the elderly -  as an expression of a new geo-political pattern characterized by care-drain in the East and care-gain in the West. I will analyze care politics in Europe, where the majority of migrant care workers are female and not from the Global South but from Eastern Europe. East to West care migration is explored as a de facto solution to the care deficit in receiving countries (Western, Southern and Northern Europe) where care-importing countries either open the labor market to migrant workers or are compliant with a growing undocumented care market. While the EU promotes equal opportunities policies and an ‘adult-worker’ model for men and women alike, neither debates about nor measures to ensure an equal division of family and work obligations are on its agenda. In addition, the EU has so far ignored the socio-economic European care gaining/losing split, which produces inequalities between families and states inside the EU and at its margins. On the sending side of the European division, the care replacement for non-migrating family members (children and the elderly) is a matter of individual arrangements without any aid granted by employers or state institutions.

My analysis will be based on the examination of EU and member states’ policy documents concerning work-life balance politics and on results of our case study (Landscapes of Care-Drain. Care provision and care drain from the Ukraine to Poland and from Poland to Germany, 2007-2010) which focuses on the perspective of female migrant care-workers and their families left behind.