01.03.2017New research project: Decent Care Work

The project will start in July 2017 and run for three years. It is a DACH-cooperation between the research groups of Prof. Dr. Helma Lutz at the University of Frankfurt, Prof. Dr. Brigitte Aulenbacher at the University of Linz and Dr. Karin Schwiter at the University of Zurich.
The project studies the transnational recruitment by home care agencies of, usually female, migrant carers for employment as live-ins in private households. It will examine 24-hour care in the destination countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where a trend can be observed towards formalisation of the commodification and transnationalisation of care and care work. 24-hour care is developing within welfare state systems into an accepted way to bridge gaps in care where demographic change is creating new challenges and eroding former arrangements for care and work, for example within the family, between the generations and between the genders.
The project researches how both transnationally operating home care agencies as well as care receivers and care-giving migrants in the households deal with expectations of good care and good work; how care and work requirements as well as the work to be performed are negotiated between the three groups of actors; which contradictions and conflicts occur, and how the care and work arrangements are critically questioned, justified and legitimised.

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