Changing Care and Migrations Regimes : New Contrasting Regulations and Their Impacts on Employment and Working Conditions of Care Workers. an Intersectional Perspective

Since the beginning of the 2000, the French care/domestic service sector, like other countries in Europe, has been undergoing considerable reorganisation. These changes in terms of commodification have had consequences on the modalities for providing care but also on formal/informal care, paid/unpaid, public/private care. These transformations have had a strong influence on the employment/working conditions and training of women care/domestic workers. Thus, despite professionalization policies and the implementation of new rights, precariousness is still a typical feature of this sector.

However “local indicators” as well as considerations on “who cares ?” have to be taken into account. Indeed, this sector constitutes a working universe that is extremely complex to grasp, due to the multiple actors involved, the levels of intervention (local and national)... For example, when the sector comes to professionalization, the progress still remains fragile and has not taken place evenly or at the same time across all segments of the sector.

At the same time, these new regulations have taken place against a background of changes in migration policies and the dynamics of migration.

In this context, this paper aims at analysing the effects of these trends and contrasts on employments and working conditions of care/domestic workers (elderly and child care), in an intersectional perspective. We will discuss in which ways these consequences are similar or not for migrant and not migrant domestic/care workers and  if not, why and how.

A European research project coordinated by the ILO has been instrumental in foregrounding issues relating to the role and working conditions of migrants as caregivers. This paper will present results from the French case as an example of mixed care regimes. Data sources include LFS data, policy reports, interviews with  union representatives, government departments, NGOs (16) and  migrants working in the sector (50).