Research Project: Migration and networks of care in Europe
Dates: 01 September 2006 - 31 August 2009
Migration and networks of care in Europe: a theoretical synthesis of gender, migration and care, and welfare regimes.
The overall project is about the provision of domestic services in private households in Europe.
As female labour force participation has increased, demand for domestic workers has risen. Inadequate state provision and a move towards providing cash benefits to buy in care services for children, older, frail and disabled people, is intensifying this demand.
Migrant women are meeting much of the new demand for care and domestic service in private households, with non-EU nationals officially accounting for over 10 per cent of those employed in this sector.
However, since much of this work is undocumented and informal, its contribution to the European economy is much greater. Fiona Williams' contribution to this collaborative study of the phenomenon is to examine the role that migrant domestic and migrant care workers play in the changing welfare regimes of Europe, and develop a theoretical understanding of this in terms of the political economy of care in Europe within an international, post-colonial and gendered context.
The study draws on an earlier collaborative study with Anna Gavanas of employers and employees in home-based child care in London, Madrid and Stockholm. The study will develop a framework for a cross-national analysis of the interaction between 'migration regimes', 'care policy regimes' and 'employment regimes' across six countries: UK, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands.
Project Publications
Fiona Williams (2004) 'Trends in Women’s Employment, Domestic Service, and Female Migration:changing and competing patterns of solidarity’ in T.Knijn and A. Komter (eds.) Solidarity between the sexes and generations: transformations in Europe, Edward Elgar.
'How do we theorise migration and care in European Welfare States?' paper presented to the Annual Conference of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 19 on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy, University of Florence, 6-8 September 2007.
Lister, R.; Williams, F.; Antonnen, A., Bussemaker, M.; Gerhard, U.;
Heinen, J.; Johansson, S.; Leira, A.; Siim, B.; Tobio, C.; with
Gavanas, A. (2007) Gendered citizenship in western Europe: new
challenges for citizenship research in a cross-national context, The
Policy Press
Chapters in Books
Williams, F. and A. Gavanas (2008) The Intersection of Child Care
Regimes and Migration Regimes: a three-country study, In: H. Lutz (ed)
Migration and Domestic Work: a European perspective on a Global Theme,
Routledge.
Principal Investigator
Other Staff Involved
Co-ordinator: Dr Linda Connolly (University of Cork)
Partners: Professor Helma Lutz (University of Frankfurt), Dr Sarah van Walsum (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam).
Funding
ESRC Eurocores, European Collaborative Research Programme