Who shapes migration in open labour markets? Analysing migration infrastructures and brokers of circularly migrating home care workers in Switzerland

Abstract

Fostered by the free movement of workers agreement in the Schengen area, a new market for live-in care work has emerged. Private for-profit care agencies recruit circular migrant women from Eastern Europe and place them in private households for senior care in Western Europe. This paper looks at the recruitment and placement practices of these agencies. Drawing on concepts on migration infrastructures and a politics of mobility, we argue that these agencies are key drivers in the production of new migration infrastructures tailored to live-in carers' circular mobility patterns. This infrastructure intersects with existing work, gender and care regimes, and works in ways that enclose care workers in the households, ensuring their return home after an assignment. It shapes their migration as a form of movement characterized by repeated short-term and 'just-in-time' jobs. This requires care workers to be mobile, flexible and disposable. Hence, care agencies play an important role in perpetuating an unequal distribution of care along lines of gender and socio-economic inequalities. The findings point to fundamental changes in migration control in the Schengen area with private actors such as care agencies gaining new powers in determining who and under which conditions workers migrate.

Cross‐border mobility, inequality and migration intermediaries: Labour migration from Nepal to Malaysia

“…They play crucial roles in facilitating the movement of migrants from one country to another, shaping migrants' experience as well as developmental outcomes (Martin, 2007; Sha, 2021a). Recent scholarship also shows that intermediaries play gatekeeping and regulatory roles linked to uneven and stratified mobility (Chau & Schwiter, 2021; Jones, 2021; Sha, 2021a; Sha & Bhuiyan, 2022). This scholarship was influenced by the concept of migration infrastructure developed by Xiang and Lindquist (2014), which is key to understanding how migration is mediated.…”

“…Yet, our data suggest that non‐state actors, namely migration intermediaries, are also key actors in reproducing and reconstructing social inequalities experienced by migrant workers. They ‘capitalise(s) on transnational inequalities’ between originating and destination countries (Chau & Schwiter, 2021, 734), relying on their professional knowledge which serves to maintain unequal power relations with migrant workers, facilitating economic manipulation through high migration costs and the channelling of migrants into blue‐collar jobs in Malaysia. This, combined with the temporary employment status of migrant workers and strict migration policies, regulations and workplace norms, reproduce immobility and social inequalities.…”

“…Some recent studies of migration intermediaries have shown how the gatekeeping roles of private sector intermediaries are linked to gendered and racialized inequalities experienced by migrant domestic workers (Chau & Schwiter, 2021; Sha, 2021a; Sha & Bhuiyan, 2022). We broaden this discussion by demonstrating the ambivalent, dual roles of migration intermediaries and analysing socioeconomic and power dimensions of inequality in mediated migration.…”

Infrastruktura delegowania pracowników: przykład transgranicznego sektora opieki domowej

“…Jednakże większość prac empirycznych odnosi się do specyfiki krajów Azji Południowo-Wschodniej (Lin, Gleiss 2018;Lan 2019). W dużo mniejszym zakresie była ona stosowana do studiów nad systemami mobilności zarobkowej w krajach Unii Europejskiej, głównie w wymiarze zorganizowanego systemu rekrutowania pracowników do innych państw (Bolokan 2020;Chau, Schwiter 2021). Jeśli chodzi o kwalifikacje pracowników, najwięcej uwagi poświęcono rozważaniom nad organizowaniem migracji osób nisko wykwalifikowanych, zarówno z perspektywy państw przyjmujących, jak i eksportujących pracowników do określonych sektorów na całym świecie (przykład Filipin i zorganizowanego od lat 70.…”