Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:23:49.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Employment of Migrant Workers in Long-Term Care: Dynamics of Choice and Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2011

ISABEL SHUTES
ISABEL SHUTES*
Affiliation:
ESCR Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6QS email: isabel.shutes@compas.ox.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The employment of migrant workers in long-term care is increasingly evident across western welfare states. This article examines the ways in which immigration controls shape the exercising of choice and control by migrant care workers over their labour. It draws on the findings of in-depth interviews with migrant care workers employed by residential and home care providers and by older people and their families in the UK. It is argued that the differential rights accorded to migrants on the basis of citizenship and immigration status shape, first, entry into particular types of care work, second, powers of ‘exit’ within work, and, third, ‘voice’ regarding the conditions under which care labour is provided.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 43 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, B. (2009), ‘Mobilizing migrants, making citizens: migrant domestic workers as political agents’, Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33: 1, 60–74.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2010), ‘Migration, immigration controls and the fashioning of precarious workers’, Work, Employment and Society, 24: 2, 300–17.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2011), Citizenship: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?, Oxford: Migration Observatory, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. and Rogaly, B. (2005), Forced Labour and Migration to the UK, Oxford: Centre for Migration, Policy and Society and the Trades Union Congress.Google Scholar
Arksey, H. and Kemp, P. (2008), Dimensions of Choice: A Narrative Review of Cash-for-Care Schemes, York: Social Policy Research Unit, University of York.Google Scholar
Bach, S. (2007), ‘Going global? The regulation of nurse migration in the UK’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 45: 2, 383–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettio, F., Simonazzi, A. and Villa, P. (2006), ‘Change in care regimes and female migration: the care drain in the Mediterranean’, Journal of European Social Policy, 16: 3, 271–85.Google Scholar
Boris, E. and Klein, J. (2006), ‘Organizing home care: low-waged workers in the welfare state’, Politics and Society, 34: 1, 81–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourgeault, I., Atanackovic, J., Rashid, A. and Parpia, R. (2010), ‘Relations between immigrant care workers and older persons in home and long-term care’, Canadian Journal on Aging, 29: 1, 109–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cangiano, A. and Shutes, I. (2010), ‘Ageing, demand for care and the role of migrant care workers in the UK’, Journal of Population Ageing, 3: 1–2, 39–57.Google Scholar
Cangiano, A., Shutes, I., Spencer, S. and Leeson, G. (2009), Migrant Care Workers in Ageing Societies: Research Findings in the UK, Oxford: Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Castles, S. and Miller, M. J. (2003), The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Daly, M. (2002), ‘Care as a good for social policy’, Journal of Social Policy, 31: 2, 251–70.Google Scholar
Daly, M. and Lewis, J. (2000), ‘The concept of social care and the analysis of contemporary welfare states’, British Journal of Sociology, 51: 2, 281–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eborall, C., Fenton, W. and Woodrow, S. (2010), The State of the Adult Social Care Workforce in England, 2010, Leeds: Skills for Care.Google Scholar
Forder, J. and Fernández, J.-L. (2010), The Impact of a Tightening Fiscal Situation on Social Care for Older People, Personal Social Services Research Unit Discussion Paper 2723.Google Scholar
Glendinning, C. (2008), ‘Increasing choice and control for older and disabled people: a critical review of new developments in England’, Social Policy and Administration, 42: 5, 451–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glendinning, C. (2010), ‘Continuous and long-term care: European perspectives’, in Dannefer, D. and Phillipson, C. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Gerontology, London: Sage, pp. 551–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, A. O. (1970), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Le Grand, J. (2007), The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Choice and Competition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Le Grand, J. and Bartlett, W. (1993), ‘The theory of quasi-markets’, in Le Grand, J. and Bartlett, W. (eds.), Quasi-Markets and Social Policy, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, pp. 13–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, S., Lowell, B. L., Gozdziak, E. M., Bump, M. and Breeding, M. E. (2009), The Role of Migrant Care Workers in Aging Societies: Research Findings in the United States, Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Morris, J. (2006), ‘Independent living: the role of the disability movement in the development of government policy’, in Glendinning, C. and Kemp, P. (eds.), Cash and Care: Policy Challenges in the Welfare State, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Newman, J., Glendinning, C. and Hughes, M. (2008), ‘Beyond modernisation? Social care and the transformation of welfare governance’, Journal of Social Policy, 37: 4, 531–57.Google Scholar
Österle, A. and Hammer, E. (2007), ‘Care allowances and the formalization of care arrangements: the Austrian experience’, in Ungerson, C. and Yeandle, S. (eds.), Cash for Care Systems in Developed Welfare States, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ruhs, M. and Anderson, B. (2010), ‘Semi-compliance and illegality in migrant labour markets: an analysis of migrants, employers and the state in the UK’, Population, Space and Place, 16: 3, 195–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rummery, K. (2009), ‘A comparative discussion of the gendered implications of cash-for-care schemes: markets, independence and social citizenship in crisis?’, Social Policy and Administration, 43: 6, 634–48.Google Scholar
Skills for Care (2011), National Minimum Data Set on Social Care Briefing 14: Migrant Workers.Google Scholar
Smith, C. (2006), ‘The double indeterminacy of labour power: labour effort and labour mobility’, Work, Employment and Society, 20: 2, 389–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, S. (2011), The Migration Debate, Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P. (2008), ‘Choice and values: individual rational action and social goals’, Journal of Social Policy, 37: 2, 167–85.Google Scholar
Timonen, V., Convery, J. and Cahill, S. (2006), ‘Care revolutions in the making? A comparison of cash-for-care programmes in Four European countries’, Ageing and Society, 26: 455–74.Google Scholar
Ungerson, C. (1999), ‘Personal assistants and disabled people: an examination of a hybrid form of work and care’, Work, Employment and Society, 13: 583–600.Google Scholar
Ungerson, C. and Yeandle, S. (eds.) (2007), Cash for Care Systems in Developed Welfare States, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Walsh, K. and O'Shea, E. (2009), The Role of Migrant Care Workers in Ageing Societies: Context and Experiences in Ireland, Galway: Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, National University of Ireland Galway.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (1999), ‘Good enough principles for welfare’, Journal of Social Policy, 28: 4, 667–87.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (2011a), ‘Towards a transnational analysis of the political economy of care’, in Mahon, R. and Robinson, F. (eds.), Feminist Ethics and Social Policy: Towards a New Global Political Economy of Care, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (2011b), ‘Care, migration and citizenship: migration and home-based care in Europe’, in Dahl, H. and Kovalainen, A. (eds.), Europeanization, Care and Gender: Global Complexities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Yeates, N. (2009), Globalizing Care Economies and Migrant Workers, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar