Migrant care work has emerged as an increasingly important solution to the challenges of growing eldercare needs in both the private and the public sphere. Migrant workers are employed in domestic services in Southern European and in some continental European countries, and they are a significant part of the work force in the formal care sector in many national contexts. The article provides an exploratory cross-country analysis of the phenomenon. After assessing the extent of migrant care work based on individually contracted workers in the domestic sector vs. organization-based care workers in nine European welfare states, it investigates which conditions sustain specific national patterns. Using fuzzy-set analysis the article demonstrates how the intersection of care, migration and employment regimes shapes different patterns of migrant care work.

Intergenerational solidarity within families is the traditional source of support for dependent elderly people in southern European countries, where care needs have been mainly fulfilled by the unpaid work of women. Recently, the decline of informal care and the persistent lack of supply of formal services have been accompanied by the growth of commercial services mostly provided by migrant women hired by families in the grey market. The article is based on a qualitative study and explores the social processes underlying these changes. It suggests that although intergenerational solidarity is still crucial, it is expressed less through the direct provision of care and more through the supervision of paid services. This shift, which results mainly from a strategy adopted by middle-class women, challenges traditional gender relations and divisions of work. Moreover, it produces employment relations characterized by low pay and underprotection and reflecting conflicts over time and space typically present in informal care relations.

Since the 1990s European conservative-corporatist welfare states have expanded public support for child- and eldercare needs. This is in marked contrast to Southern European countries, of which Italy is a paradigmatic example. In Italy, the traditional configuration (limited development of social services coupled with the importance of informal care, mainly provided by women) has recently come under strain, also because of the increasing employment of women. Nonetheless, rather than the development of new policies, this has given rise to a hybrid combination of informal care and the development of a loosely regulated and little supported care market. In this sense, the article asks why care in Italy has been “going private” instead of “going public”. It is argued that cultural features and political ideology do not provide a sufficient explanation: in addition to sharp financial constraints, the structure and functioning of the state and labor market and migration regulation need to be considered.