5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

While much research points to the role of migrants in providing care, there has been limited attention to how governments (and other actors) are shaping the mobility of care workers. The proposed session engages theoretically and empirically with labour mobility and long-term care systems, including the movement of workers into, within, and out of care work, transnationally and within care labour markets. The session brings into focus interdisciplinary theories of mobility and immobility, which allow us to connect international migration and labour market mobility. The session contributors shine light on a variety of institutional and policy contexts, where governments are utilising migration policies and programmes to actively expand international recruitment in their long-term care systems. At the same time, it addresses how transnational and local actors within migration and care industries and infrastructures, including care providers/employers, recruitment agencies and brokers, seek to recruit and retain care workers in local and global care labour markets. We ask how do these approaches to mobilising care labour, within varying institutional and policy contexts, structure and shape different groups of people as more or less permanent or temporary, mobile or immobile forms of care labour? And what are the implications for developing more sustainable and more equitable care labour markets and policies towards migration and long-term care systems?

Session format: invited session / joint session of RC31 and RC19