Irregular migrant domestic workers in Europe : who cares?

Abstract

An extract of the book, the introduction chapter, is available in PDF with permission from the publisher. ; With specific attention to irregular migrant workers - that is to say, those without legal permits to stay in the countries in which they work - this volume focuses on domestic work, presenting studies from ten European countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. Offering a comparative analysis of irregular migrants engaged in all kinds of domestic work, the authors explore questions relating to employment conditions, health issues and the family lives of migrants. The book examines the living and working conditions of irregular migrant domestic workers, their relations with employers, their access to basic rights such as sick leave, sick pay, and holiday pay, as well as access to health services. Close consideration is also given to the challenges for family life presented by workers' status as irregular migrants, with regard to their lives both in their countries of origin and with their employers. Through analyses of the often blurred distinction between legality and illegality, the notion of a 'career' in domestic work and the policy responses of European nations to the growth of irregular migrant domestic work, this volume offers various conceptual developments in the study of migration and domestic work. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, political scientists, geographers and anthropologists with interests in migration, gender, the family and domestic work. ; • Preface; • Irregular migration and domestic work in Europe. Who cares?, Anna Triandafyllidou; • Domestic work in Belgium: crossing boundaries between informality and formality, Marie Godin; • Migration careers and professional trajectories of irregular domestic workers in France, Karin Sohler and Florence Lévy; • Three different things: having, knowing, and claiming rights: undocumented immigrant domestic workers in Germany, Lisa-Marie Heimeshoff and Helen Schwenken; • 'With all the cares in the world': irregular migrant domestic workers in Greece, Michaela Maroufof; • The home as a site of work, Sally Daly; • Undocumented domestic workers in Italy: surviving and regularizing strategies, Paola Bonizzoni; • Regulating migrant domestic work in the Netherlands: opportunities and pitfalls, Sarah van Walsum; • Globally interdependent households: irregular migrants employed in domestic work in Spain, Tania González Fernández; • Irregular migrant domestic workers in Europe: major socioeconomic challenges, Anna Triandafyllidou and Thanos Maroukis; • Index.