Migrant care workers in Austrian private households of elderly people. A call for a fundamental change in social work.

Autor/in	Raithelhuber, Eberhard
Titel	Migrant care workers in Austrian private households of elderly people. A call for a fundamental change in social work.
Quelle	Aus: Hamzaoui, Mejed (Hrsg.); Léonard, Dimitri (Hrsg.); Artois, Pierre (Hrsg.): Vieillissement et société: Catégorisations, travail, politiques sociales. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-L'Harmattan (2017) S. 149-168Verfügbarkeit
Reihe	Intellection. 28
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; Sammelwerksbeitrag
ISBN	978-2-8061-0318-5
Schlagwörter	Vulnerabilität; Altenhilfe; Altenpflege; Österreich; Sozialpädagogik; Altern; Migration; Soziale Unterstützung; Pflegepersonal; Altenpolitik; Migration; Altern; Sozialpädagogik; Altenhilfe; Altenpflege; Altenpolitik; Soziale Arbeit; Soziale Unterstützung; Häusliche Pflege; Pflegepersonal; Österreich
Abstract	All around the world, the growing number of elderly people in need of care, nursing and social assistance has become a major topic. This is equally true for Austria. Public debates and scientific contributions in this field predominantly focus on older individuals and on formal care providers within the established, institutionalized welfare system, e.g. in the context of residential and domiciliary care services. However, those who provide the majority of care work for elderly people in private homes in Austria are relatives and neighbors. They are taken into account to a lesser degree. This applies all the more for transnationally mobile care workers, known in international contexts as " live-ins". These 24-hour care workers are becoming increasingly significant within the Austrian care system. As live-ins, they commute between their homes in Eastern European countries and their private, individual employers in Austria, where they stay for nonstop shifts of two weeks or more. International research has shown abundantly that this form of care provision entails a high degree of vulnerability for the persons involved and is based on precarious labor. Nevertheless, in the Austrian context, there are basically no systematic forms of social support or help for these mostly female workers, e.g. through social work or trade unions. If we agree that these living and working conditions constitute a case for social work, the question arises of how we can relate to this situation in practice, as well as in research and theory building. This chapter firstly sheds light on the socio-political framework, historical development and characteristic of domestic care provision for elderly people in Austria. Secondly, it reflects on the transnationalization of a nation-statebased organization and regularization of welfare provision in the field of elderly home care. It does so, thirdly, to mark out some chal lenges for social work theory, research and practice in this field, which are fundamentally significant for our discussions beyond the Austrian example and beyond the narrow issues at hand. Hence, it is argued that social work has to develop both research and practice in a progressive manner that transcends and discards the existing encapsulation of how we act and think, i.e. within traditional welfarist and nationalist logics. (Orig.).
Erfasst von	Externer Selbsteintrag
Update	2024/1