Live-in migrant care worker arrangements in Germany and the Netherlands: motivations and justifications in family decision-making

Abstract

Private households in ageing societies increasingly employ live-in migrant carers (LIMCs) to care for relatives in need of 24/7 care and supervision. Whilst LIMC arrangements are a common practice in Germany, they are only recently emerging in the Netherlands. Taking this development as a starting point, this study uses the countries’ different long-term care (LTC) regimes as the analytical framework to explore and compare the motivations and justifications of German and Dutch family carers who opt for an LIMC arrangment. Findings show that Dutch and German LTC regimes impact differently the decision-making processes of families, as well as on patterns of justification, through a combination of policies and social norms and their related expectations towards care and care work in old age.

Keywords

• families
• Germany
• live-in migrant carers
• long-term care
• older people
• The Netherlands