The missing link: Gender, immigration policy and the Live-in Caregiver Program in Canada

Brickner, Rachel K.; Straehle, Christine

doi:10.1016/j.polsoc.2010.09.004

Cited by 35 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…As Tronto (2013) states, governments have failed to take responsibility for the care deficit and failed to elevate the significance of caring responsibilities in democratic deliberations. This is evident in Canada, which has historically relied on the migration of temporary foreign workers – primarily women from the Philippines – to take on caring responsibilities (Brickner and Straehle, 2010). This immigration programme reinforces and reiterates a neo-liberal maternal-care-burden discourse as it seeks to address the caring needs of some (middle-class) Canadian mothers who wish to re-enter the workforce.…”

Section: Universalizing the Care Burdenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who cares for carers? How discursive constructions of care work marginalized early childhood educators in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election

Powell

Langford

Albanese

et al. 2020

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

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In the Canadian province of Ontario, the early childhood education and care workforce continues to be undervalued, underpaid and burdened with challenging working conditions. Drawing on Fairclough and Lazar, this study employed a feminist critical discourse analysis to explore the discourses of care work present in the 2018 childcare platforms of three major parties: the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. This critical discourse analysis provided an opportunity to consider the absence and presence of early childhood education and care discourses in the election platforms, and the consequences this has for the advancement of the workforce. The findings indicate that the early childhood education and care workforce remained largely invisible in the 2018 childcare platforms. When present, educators were often constructed as components of the early childhood education and care system’s stability. In addition, a discourse of ‘maternal care burden’ emerged in some platforms, which initially suggested progressive recognition of the gendered reality of care and care work for women in Ontario. However, the critical discourse analysis illuminates that the maternal-care-burden discourse, while suggesting that mothers are freed to enter the paid workforce, actually reinforces notions of care as women’s work. As well, this discourse further marginalizes the early childhood education and care workforce by downloading one group’s caring responsibilities to a new group of invisible carers – early childhood educators. In light of these findings, the need to disrupt discourses that continue to devalue the early childhood education and care workforce is considered as researchers and advocates seek to assert care labour as an essential public responsibility and a critical concern in political dialogue.

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Section: Universalizing the Care Burdenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who cares for carers? How discursive constructions of care work marginalized early childhood educators in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election

Powell

Langford

Albanese

et al. 2020

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The policy defines the roles and responsibility of a caregiver. It looks at caregiving as women's work (Brickner and Straehle 2010;Kalaw and Gross 2010;Khan 2009;Nyaga 2015;Stiell and England 2011). Caregivers are supposed to live with the employer for two years, after which they can apply for permanent residence.…”

Section: Gendered Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Filipino women live-in caregivers have been sexually, physically and emotionally abused by their employers (Brickner and Straehle 2010;Kalaw and Gross 2010;Khan 2009;Lindio-McGovern 2003;Stiell and England 2011;Walia 2011). They are overworked and made to do other kinds of work not stipulated in the contract.…”

Section: Gendered Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Citizenship: A Case Study of Paid Filipino Male Live-In Caregivers in Toronto

Nyaga¹,

Torres²

2017

IJAPS

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“…In combination with tax deductions and cash benefits, described above, immigration policy has promoted a commodified and unregulated, private childcare market in Canada. Thus, while immigration plays a significant role in facilitating in‐home childcare (Pratt ; Bakan and Stasiulis ; Brickner and Straehle ), this form of care is excluded from ECEC regulations. In‐home childcare in Canada is publicly supported through tax credits and cash benefits, but remains firmly in the private sphere of regulatory responsibility.…”

Section: The Intersection Of Ecec and Migration Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Return of the Nanny: Public Policy towards In‐home Childcare in the UK, Canada and Australia

Adamson

Brennan

2016

Soc Policy Adm

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Research on early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy focuses overwhelmingly on formal, centre‐based provision and, to a lesser extent, on family day care (or childminding) provided in the homes of registered carers. Comparatively little research addresses the policy treatment of care provided in the child's home by nannies and au pairs. This article examines the position of in‐home childcare in Australia, the UK and Canada, and the varied nature and extent of public funding and regulation. Introducing a new dimension into comparative studies of ECEC, it also explores how shifts in migration policy in each country have intersected with ECEC funding and regulation to reshape the recruitment and employment of in‐home child carers. Australia, the UK and Canada are all liberal, market‐oriented countries, but there is considerable diversity in the way governments support and regulate in‐home childcare, their rationales for so doing, and in the connections between childcare and migration. We argue that connecting the analysis of in‐home childcare to migration policies raises new questions about the classification and comparison of ECEC policies.

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The missing link: Gender, immigration policy and the Live-in Caregiver Program in Canada

Cited by 35 publications

References 6 publications

Who cares for carers? How discursive constructions of care work marginalized early childhood educators in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election

Who cares for carers? How discursive constructions of care work marginalized early childhood educators in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election

Gendered Citizenship: A Case Study of Paid Filipino Male Live-In Caregivers in Toronto

Return of the Nanny: Public Policy towards In‐home Childcare in the UK, Canada and Australia

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