The globalization of care work: Neoliberal economic restructuring and migration policy

Abstract

Significant scholarly research has focused on the ‘globalization of care work’, or how care has been distributed and redistributed in an international system where immigrant workers provide care in wealthier countries. We argue that nation-states, through a range of contradictory policies and bilateral agreements, explicitly create and reinforce the redistribution and internationalization of care work. We show how economic restructuring has helped create both demand for and a supply of immigrant care workers, while migration policies have played a key role in shaping migration flows. We examine two dyads of sending and receiving flows: Morocco/France and Poland/Germany. These cases share both similarities and differences, which allows us to consider how the global political and economic processes shaping the international division of care work play out in different contexts.