Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck

Care Work Migration in Germany: Semi-Compliance and Complicity

In this article, we deal with contradictions and paradoxes of the German policies on migration and domestic care work. Although the demand for care workers in private homes is increasing, the German government has turned a blind eye to the topic of migrant care workers. As a result of the mismatch between demand and restrictive policies, a large sector of undeclared care work has come into being. This veritable ‘twilight zone’ can be coined an ‘open secret’ as it is the topic of extensive discussions among the populace and in the media. We will address various discrepancies in the debate on migrant domestic work in Germany by providing a view from multiple actors’ perspectives. Examining the intersections of gendered migration and care regimes, we assert that undeclared care migration is an integral part of German welfare state policies, which can be characterised as compliance and complicity.

Introduction: Domestic and Care Work at the Intersection of Welfare, Gender and Migration Regimes: Some European Experiences

Research over the last decade and more, has documented a resurgence of paid domestic and care labour (that is, work performed for pay in private households, such as household cleaning and maintenance and care for elders/disabled/children) across the Global North. 1 Much of the research has revealed the increasing reliance on migrant , as opposed to home-state, domestic workers, and it has been suggested (Lutz, 2007: 4) that domestic and care work has contributed more than any other sector of the labour market to one of the key features of the ‘age of migration’ (Castles and Miller, 2009) – its feminisation. At the same time though, as Lintons (2002) research on immigrant-niche formation in the USA suggests, the availability of immigrants in itself, has probably contributed to the growth of the sector.

Care Chains in Eastern and Central Europe: Male and Female Domestic Work at the Intersections of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity

The migration of domestic workers has become a significant part of the movement from and inside of eastern European countries. Using the example of Poland as both a sending and a receiving country, two overlapping cases of care circulation and European care chains (from Ukraine to Poland and from Poland to Germany) will be analyzed. I will argue that migrant domestic work dynamics result from and recreate social inequalities based on gender, class, and ethnicity/citizenship, which will be analyzed on the level of policies and actors, the latter using the example of Polish handymen working in German households.

New maids – new butlers? Polish domestic workers in Germany and commodification of social reproductive work

Purpose – In the last decades, migration of domestic workers and, in particular, care workers has grown into a significant part of movement from the global South to the global North. This phenomenon is referred to as the “new international division in social reproductive work” – outsourcing domestic chores to (mostly) migrants enables families in the global North to escape from the tensions arising from balancing productive and social reproductive work. This paper seeks to address these issues.Design/methodology/approach – Considering two empirical examples of stereotypically male and female migrant domestic work – Polish handymen and elderly care workers – this paper puts the phenomenon in the context of the broader feminist debate on care work, global care chains and social policies.Findings – It attempts to analyze how the employment of Polish handymen or elderly care workers in Germany results from and recreates social inequalities based on gender, class and ethnicity/citizenship.Originality/value – F...

Fatherhood and Masculinities in Post-socialist Europe: The Challenges of Transnational Migration

This chapter analyses the experiences of men ‘at the bottom end’ of transnational care chains in Eastern Europe, addressing masculinity in the context of fatherhood in migrant families.

Introduction: Family Life in an Age of Migration and Mobility: Introducing a Global and Family Life-Course Perspective

In addition to sketching out the volume chapter by chapter, the Introduction outlines the contribution the book makes to scholarship on family life in an age of migration and mobility by its choice of analytical frames. Firstly, the dual lens of migration and mobilities which allows a focus on family life stretched across multiple spatial scales. Secondly, a global perspective which facilitates the interrogation of Western theoretical frames from different world views, as well the examination of interdependencies and inequalities between and within different regions of the world. Thirdly, the family life-course lens which brings temporality into the frame, and invites the use of the concept of social reproduction, allowing for a focus on how families are formed, procreate and care over time and space.

Fathers' time-bind and the outsourcing of “male” domestic work in Europe: the cases of the United Kingdom and Germany

In this article we examine the processes driving the outsourcing of masculinized forms of domestic work, involving household and garden maintenance and repair, and its displacement to migrant men; a trend which we conceive as part of the broader transnationalization of care that has been highlighted in feminist scholarship. The article draws on two studies conducted in the United Kingdom and Germany, and focuses on the demand on the part of households buying in “male” domestic services. We find that households use handymen in order to alleviate a father time-bind, which is rooted in three processes. Firstly, a “Europeanization” in norms around childhood, parenting and fathering; secondly, a liberalization and flexibilization of working time regimes in both countries; and thirdly, path dependency in welfare regimes based historically on a male breadwinner model. On the basis of our findings in the United Kingdom and Germany, we conclude the paper by reflecting on whether and why we might expect the commoditization of male domestic services to be manifest in other European countries.

„Unsichtbare ÜbersetzerInnen“ in der Biographieforschung: Übersetzung als Methode

Obwohl Mehrsprachigkeit auch den Alltag der empirischer Sozialforschung immer starker pragt, bleibt das Thema in der theoretischen Reflexion uber deren Methoden weitgehend ausgeblendet – dies gilt insbesondere fur einen Bereich, in der ihr eigentlich eine zentrale Bedeutung zukommt: der Forschung zu transnationalen Biographien. Dieser Beitrag versucht, die Rolle von Mehrsprachigkeit in der Biographieforschung und die Notwendigkeit von Ubersetzung als Hindernis und Ressource zu akzentuieren. Zunachst wird dargestellt, welche theoretischen Diskussionen zur Bedeutung der Ubersetzung in anderen Disziplinen – Linguistik, post-colonial studies, Ethnologie und Translationswissenschaften – den Stand der Forschung in diesem Feld pragen; anschliesend wird anhand von empirischen Fallbeispielen diskutiert, inwieweit der Stand der Theorie der realen Forschungspraxis angemessen ist. Abschliesend folgen ein Resumee und ein Ausblick auf aktuelle Entwicklungen in Bezug auf das Thema Ubersetzung in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschungsmethodologie und -praxis.

Unequal Fatherhoods: Citizenship, Gender, and Masculinities in Outsourced ‘Male’ Domestic Work

The chapter looks at fatherhood in the context of the ‘migrant handymen phenomenon’—the outsourcing of ‘male’ domestic work to migrant workers. In Germany, these migrants are mostly Poles; for 25 years, they have been dominating the supply side of a firmly established semi-legal market for domestic work. Palenga-Mollenbeck addresses the question of how this phenomenon is related to a new form of intra-European inequality, which is also reflected in a salient inequality of opportunities to live up to modern norms of fatherhood. The chapter concludes that the luxury of ‘quality time’ for children and the ostentatiously gender-equal lifestyle of German fathers in fact heavily relies on the precarious work and life of Polish fathers and gender inequality within their own families back home.

Care-Arbeit, Gender und Migration: Überlegungen zu einer Theorie der transnationalen Migration im Haushaltsarbeitssektor in Europa

Die transnationale Migration im Bereich der Care-Arbeit (also beispielsweise die Betreuung von Kindern bzw. die Pflege von alteren Menschen oder Menschen mit Behinderung) gewinnt in europaischen Gesellschaften immer mehr an Bedeutung. Hierfur gibt es vielfaltige Grunde: Zu nennen waren die demografische Entwicklung (sinkende Geburtenraten, die alternde Gesellschaft), soziookonomische Faktoren (die steigende Zahl erwerbstatiger Frauen, die zunehmende Mobilitat auch uber grosere Entfernungen hinweg) und schlieslich der Ruckzug des Wohlfahrtsstaats aus zahlreichen Lebensbereichen, etwa aus der Pflege alterer Menschen und der Kinderbetreuung. In Deutschland, der im Folgenden von uns diskutierten Fallstudie, wird diese immer groser werdende Versorgungslucke durch transnationale Migrantinnen, vor allem aus Polen, gedeckt, die die anfallende Betreuungs- und Pflegearbeit verrichten. Im vorliegenden Beitrag soll zunachst das Analysemodell vorgestellt werden, auf das wir uns im Rahmen unserer Forschungsarbeit zum Thema Migration im Haushaltsarbeits- und Altenpflegesektor von der Ukraine nach Polen und von Polen nach Deutschland gestutzt haben. Anschliesend sollen mehrere empirische Beispiele angefuhrt werden, die Erklarungskraft des Modells belegen. Der Beitrag ist wie folgt gegliedert: Im ersten Abschnitt soll unser Mehrebenen-Analysemodell der transnationalen Care-Migration eingefuhrt werden. Anschliesend wollen wir im zweiten Teil eine Fallstudie zur Situation in Deutschland vorlegen, um aufzuzeigen, wie die relevanten Aspekte des Modells jeweils zusammenhangen. Zunachst soll dabei die Rolle der nationalen Regime (die Makroebene der Analyse) analysiert werden und es soll dargelegt werden, wie diese die transnationale Organisation der Care-Arbeit beeinflussen (die Mesoebene der Analyse). Zweitens wollen wir die Situation aus Sicht der betroffenen Migrantinnen analysieren (als Mikroanalyseebene)