Women migrants working in household services, particularly if employed in live-in carework, are among the least excluded categories of irregular migrants. Although representing a large percentage of the irregular population in Western Europe, they are hardly ever made object of moral panics and repressive policies. States rarely ‘see’ or act upon them. They are, contrary to most irregular immigrants, routinely included in sociability and commensality with natives. Neither unquestioned members of nor excluded outright from the welfare state, they inhabit a grey area. Such benign neglect, albeit highly constraining in many ways, provides them with a (comparatively) safe environment.
Drawing on a decade-long research on irregular domestic workers in Italy, we explore the ways in which Italian migration policies have slowly adapted to the presence of irregular domestic workers through a process of categorical differentiation. The irregular status of careworkers has come to be perceived not as a challenge but rather as an unhappy state of affairs created by irrational regulations. This opens a space where careworkers themselves are able to mobilize their age, gender and occupation to claim their special status as decent illegals.
