Dilemmas around temporariness and transnational recruitment agencies: the case of migrant caregivers in Taiwan and Germany

ABSTRACT

The precarious nature of caregivers’ migration is one of the fundamental characteristics of the growing marketisation of home-based care at the transnational level. Against this background, scholars have dedicated increasing attention to the role of private actors involved in the transnational recruitment/employment of migrant caregivers, such as the for-profit agencies, asking whether these intermediaries are a good or a bad thing. In order to understand the dilemmas facing this complex scenario, we interviewed trade unionists, activists, and academic experts in Taiwan and Germany, both of which are countries where the growing care needs of the ageing population are addressed by employing caregivers from abroad. In these interviews, research participants in both countries strongly criticised the emergence of transnational agencies as influential actors in the field and accused them of reproducing an exploitative temporariness of work for migrant caregivers and of the care services they provide, grounded in the temporary dimension of their mobility patterns. The research participants also evaluated the current situation as they tried to imagine alternative arrangements. Advocates for migrant caregivers’ rights expressed intense frustration at the widespread acceptance of today’s situation but they also suggested that other forms of intermediaries and of temporariness might be developed.

KEYWORDS:

• Agencies
• migration
• domestic work
• Taiwan
• Germany

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article is the outcome of the join work of the authors. However, when necessary, the writing can be attributed in the following way: Marchetti sections 1, 2 and 7; Garofalo Geymonat sections 3, 4 and 5; and Di Bartolomeo section 3.

2 In 2018 the foreign population stood at 9.7 million, around 12 per cent of the total population, of which 4.8 million were workers. There were 17.1 million German citizens of migrant descent in 2015, around 20 per cent of the total population. Source: European Union Statistical Office, year 2015.

3 Legislation on the issue was introduced at the EU level with Directive 96/71/EC, concerning the posting of workers, which was amended with Directive 2018/957/EU concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services. Also relevant to the spread of the posting system was the Service Directive 2006/123/EC (implemented in 2009).

4 With people aged 65+ representing 14 per cent of the total population in 2018. Source: Statistical Bureau Taiwan, year 2018.

5 In fact, until 2002 migrant women were obliged to take a periodic pregnancy test and were repatriated if found to be pregnant. These days, the law bans pregnancy testing by employers or agencies and provides maternity benefits for pregnant migrant workers. However, our key informants reported that in practice, workers are pressured by agencies and employers to leave the country if they want to keep the baby, which explains the prevalence of women with young children among undocumented migrants (so-called ‘runaway’ migrants) in Taiwan.