Mothers and Grandmothers on the Move: Labour Mobility and the Household Strategies of Moldovan and Ukrainian Migrant Women in Italy

Abstract

This article contributes to the understanding of the westward migration of Eastern European women, by comparing Moldovan and Ukrainian women in Italy – the most popular destination for both groups – where they are mainly employed as domestic workers and home carers. Focusing on the differences in their trajectories in this labour sector, we discuss the significance of their age at emigration and their role within their families of origin. These have an impact not only on their mobility patterns, but also on their choices of employment and general socio‐cultural integration in the host country.

Engendering the fertility-migration nexus: The role of women's migratory patterns in the analysis of fertility after migration

“…Furthermore, the analysis suggests that, after controlling for covariates including the migratory pattern and the number of children born before migration, the effect of the country of origin is scarcely significant. The only effect found to have been significant was the tempo effect in the transition to the first birth after migration among Ukrainian women, who were particularly likely to have engaged in circular or temporary migration aimed at maximizing their earnings, and to have had transnational families with grown-up children (Fedyuk 2011;Marchetti and Venturini 2014). According to a recent study, 80% of the Ukrainian women present in Italy are circular migrants (Vianello 2013).…”

Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East

“…Many of those with whom I spoke often discussed how family ties or familial duty structured the decisions they make about not only staying or going but also the type of employment they partake in. As Marchetti and Venturini (2013) confirmed, the age of migrants and their role in their own families have an impact on mobility patterns and choices of employment. Migrants' status as parents, children, or grandparents affects their mobility and, in turn, sometimes what type of work they can engage in.…”

Policing gender mobilities: interrogating the ‘feminisation of migration’ to Europe

“…It goes without saying that the expansion of the private market for home care service has had a deep impact on labour opportunities for Moldovan women in Italy and so on the level of immigration (Marchetti and Venturini 2014). Italy is one of the European countries where the private market of home-based elderly care provided by migrant women has been established for the longest time -since the end of the 1970s -and where it has grown extensively: today, 88.6% of the Italian private service sector is made up of women and 81% by migrants (Ministry of Labour 2012).…”