The world of senior care provision and care work is changing rapidly. This collection identifies brokering agencies for live-in care workers as key drivers of this change. Across Europe, these agencies have become powerful players in reshaping welfare systems, transnational care chains and working conditions in care recipients? households. The four parts in this volume draw together the latest research on live-in home care for seniors in Europe, including: processes of commodification and marketisation, the transnationalisation of care work, the private household as a workplace and workers? contestation of the live-in care arrangement. Together, they depict far-reaching challenges in care provision and care work. The brokerage of live-in care work has created transnational care chains and markets that span across Europe. These capitalise on poverty-driven migration and social inequalities between countries. This collection uncovers how these agencies? business models are based on gender and migration regimes, labour and social policies, and regulations within and between countries. Increasingly, agencies have been trying to shape these regulations in their own interest:they have, therefore, become powerful players in many national economies and welfare systems. This volume also explores how agency-brokered senior home care provision has become highly contested, analysing the care struggles and labour disputes around both the quality of care and working conditions. We are shown how care workers? organizations and trade unions have entered the field, raising awareness of the poor working conditions that exist in contrast to the agencies? promise of delivering good care. The four parts in this volume each present a specific focus area in the context of senior home care brokering, including the following: processes of commodification and marketization, the transnationalization of care work, the private household as a workplace and the contestation of the live-in care arrangement. Together, they depict far-reaching changes in care provision and care work and the problems that have emerged in this growing sector.
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