Carers, Migration and Social Entitlements: Who Cares for the Carers?

The dominant lens through which much of the recent literature in Europe has engaged with  the care deficit has  been a focus on the migration of providers and/or the construction of care markets. Accompanying this perspective is the assumption that the providers’ caring responsibilities are left behind in the country of origin. However the migration of care providers is now well established; many have settled and reunited or formed families in Europe. So too have the flows diversified to increasingly include EU citizens from Eastern Europe. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the care needs  and the social reproduction of the carer, the demands made on them, often transnationally, and their social entitlements, thus entrenching their partial citizenship.  Particularly for third country migrants, their access to child care for their own children and pension entitlements  are often limited, and their attempts to balance responsibilities between home  and work ignored.  In addition, and especially in Southern Europe, other family members of care providers have migrated to fill the care deficits experienced by the carer.  The status of these family members, often parents undertaking unpaid care and without any official link to the labour market, is even more precarious.  The paper argues for due consideration of the needs  and unequal access to social entitlements of different categories of migrant care providers who at best exercise partial citizenship.