Migration and Domestic Work

Domestic work has become highly relevant on a local and global scale. Until a decade ago, domestic workers were rare in European households; today they can be found working for middle-class families and single people, for double or single parents as well as for the elderly. Performing the three C's - cleaning, caring and cooking - domestic workers offer their woman power on a global market which Europe has become part of. This global market is now considered the largest labour market for women world wide and it has triggered the feminization of migration. This volume brings together contributions by European and US based researchers to look at the connection between migration and domestic work on an empirical and theoretical level. The contributors elaborate on the phenomenon of 'domestic work' in late modern societies by discussing different methodological and theoretical approaches in an interdisciplinary setting. The volume also looks at the gendered aspects of domestic work; it asks why the re-introduction of domestic workers in European households has become so popular and will argue that this phenomenon is challenging gender theories. This is a timely book and will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of migration, gender and European studies.

Helma Lutz is a Professor of Women's and Gender Studies. She is at the J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt/M, Department of Social Science, Germany. Her research interests are gender, migration, ethnicity, nationalism, racism and citizenship. She has a long record of research about the intersection of gender and ethnicity in European societies and has widely published on these issues in three languages (Dutch, German, English). Her most recent book in German is: Vom Weltmarkt in den Privathaushalt. Die 'Neuen DienstmÃ-dchen' im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Opladen: Barbara Budrich 2007. She is the editor of the special issue of the European Journal of Women's Studies (14)3, 2007: Domestic Work. Her main publications in English are: The New Migration in Europe. Social Constructions and Social Realities (co-editor with Khalid Koser, London: MacMillan, 1998); Crossfires. Nationalism, Racism and Gender in Europe (co-editor with Ann Phoenix and Nira Yuval-Davis, London: Pluto Press,1995).

Chapter 1 Introduction: Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe, Helma Lutz; Part 1 Domestic Work - Business as Usual?; Chapter 2 The Intersection of Childcare Regimes and Migration Regimes: A Three-Country Study, Fiona Williams, Anna Gavanas; Chapter 3 Migrations and the Restructuring of the Welfare State in Italy: Change and Continuity in the Domestic Work Sector, Francesca Scrinzi; Chapter 4 When Home Becomes a Workplace: Domestic Work as an Ordinary Job in Germany? 1 This Chapter was originally written together with Susanne Schwalgin, whom I thank for her Participation in this research project. I also thank Gul Ozyegin for her constructive comments., Helma Lutz; Chapter 5 Perceptions of Work in Albanian Immigrants' Testimonies and the Structure of Domestic Work in Greece, Pothiti Hantzaroula; Part 2 Transnational Migration Spaces: Policies, Families and Household Management; Chapter 6. While speaking of international migration I do not consider migrations between different national areas of the same state (for instance between Hungary and Austria within the Habsburg monarchy). Conversely, I do include among inter-continental migrations those to the colonies. The main hypothesis of this Chapter - that until about the mid-nineteenth century the more common pattern of international and inter-continental servant migration was from richer to poorer countries, while thereafter the direction of the flows was increasingly from poorer to richer ones - is based on the analysis of large amounts of quantitative data, which I could not present in this Chapter due to the audience the book is addressing and lack of space., Raffaella Sarti; Chapter 7 Perpetually Foreign: Filipina Migrant Domestic Workers in Rome 1 Excerpts from this Chapter originally appeared in Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work (2001). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press., Rhacel Salazar Parreñas; Chapter 8 Domestic Work and Transnational Care Chains in Spain, Angeles Escriva, Emmeline Skinner; Chapter 9 Contingencies Among Households: Gendered Division of Labour and Transnational Household Organization - The Case of Ukrainians in Austria, Bettina Haidinger; Part 3 States and Markets: Migration Regimes and Strategies; Chapter 10 Risk and Risk Strategies in Migration: Ukrainian Domestic Workers in Poland, Marta Kindler; Chapter 11 Between Intimacy and Alienage: The Legal Construction of Domestic and Carework in the Welfare State, Guy Mundlak, Hila Shamir; Chapter 12 Being Illegal in Europe: Strategies and Policies for Fairer Treatment of Migrant Domestic Workers, Norbert Cyrus; Chapter 13; Conclusion: Domestic Work, Migration and the New Gender Order in Contemporary Europe 1 Gul Ozyegin would like to thank the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences for the Institute's financial and research support., Gul Ozyegin, Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo;