Project Summary
Given demographic, political, and social developments, the demand for transnational senior care services will continue to grow across Europe. In Germany e.g., it is estimated that 450,000 Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) migrants commute to provide live-in care for seniors in private homes every year. Fueled by economic inequalities in Europe, transnational senior care would seem to provide a perfect solution to the reproductive crisis facing many countries, while also providing benefits for welfare states, labor markets, and households. However, a question mark hangs over its sustainability. CareOrg will investigate the professionalization processes taking place in senior care work within the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), including Ukraine. It addresses the possibility of sustainable and decent care work in Europe by: (1) mapping and analyzing current and future patterns of commodification, marketization, and corporatization of transnational senior care within and from CEE; (2) focusing on the meso-level organization of care from the intersection points between care, labor, and mobility; (3) taking the perspective of sending and transit countries as a focus of the study; (4) formulating policy recommendations and feeding into public and professional debate on decent care work and sustainable long-term care solutions; and (5) boosting academic capacities in CEE countries.
Project Aims
The collaborative research project CareOrg investigates transnational senior care work from and within Central and Eastern Europe. Through empirical and engaged research we are going to map and analyze current and future patterns of commodification, marketization, transnationalization, professionalization, and digitalization of senior care.
CareOrg foregrounds the meso-level of the transnational organization of senior care in Europe, including intermediary agencies, informal and formal platforms and social media, as well as transnationally shared infrastructure. In doing so, the project focuses on the sending region, with particular attention on Central and Eastern Europe. CareOrg will deliver much-needed insights to develop more sustainable and equal long-term senior care in Europe.
Project Methods
We are an international and interdisciplinary research team of experts in the fields of labor, mobility, care, and ageing studies based at the Goethe University, Frankfurt (Germany), Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic), Center for Social Sciences, Budapest (Hungary), Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Institute for Systematic Alternatives, Kyiv (Ukraine) and at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands).
An intersectional and transnational methodology allows us to acquire a sound grasp of cross-border ideas, practices, artifacts, and structures inherent in senior care organization. Based on a cross-thematic and cross-country comparative design, we will use a mix of methods. These include document analysis and policy research: individualized for each country, with statistics on intersecting gender, labor, care and migration regimes (supranational, subnational, national), transnational labor and welfare markets, and senior care organizations; qualitative research: semi-structured and in-depth interviews with agencies, care workers, and managers, and focus groups involving unions, workers, employers, and care users; ethnographic observation of social media use, educational tools and training, and shared infrastructure; quantitative data: online survey and questionnaires; engaged research: participatory research in local workshops to exchange information for policy interventions, capacity building, and knowledge co-production (regional, national, EU level), also making a podcast series and short documentary films in order to mobilize key participants and to allow them an active part in the production of knowledge.
Outputs
Aulenbacher, Brigitte; Lutz, Helma; Palenga-Möllenbeck, Ewa & Schwiter, Karin (Eds.) ‘Home Care for Sale. The Transnational Brokering of Senior Care in Europe’. London: SAGE (2024).
Dutchak, Oksana: ‘Together We Stand: Enforced Single Motherhood and Ukrainian Refugees’ Care Networks’. In: Commons (Spilne) (2023)
Palenga-Möllenbeck, Ewa: ‘Global Care Chains’. In: Natalia Ribas, Melissa Moralli and Laura Oso Casas (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Global Migration: New Mobilities and Activism (239-241). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing (2024).
Schurian-Dąbrowska, Luise; Krause, Kristine: ‘Researching Words without Speaking Them. Language as Care Practice in Multi-Lingual Care Environments in Poland’. Medical Anthropology, Volume 42, 2023 – Issue 8: 815–827 (2023)