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Migration and Domestic Work a European Perspective on a Global Theme, Helma LUTZ 2008

The book compiles 13 chapters from 16 different researchers including the main author Helma Lutz. The chapters cover 8 European countries plus Israel, and deal with the countries of origin of the workers. In the introduction Helma Lutz explains that the transition from unpaid to paid domestic work in western countries stem from the ageing of the population and the increasing rate of female participation to the labour market in the 1970’s. Throughout the book, Helma Lutz and her co-researchers question to what extend migrant « domestic work is not just a labour market ». For this reason, it should be analysed through the intertwined theoretical frameworks of gender regimes, care regimes and migration regimes in order to dissect its economic, social and political implications on our contemporary western societies (Helma Lutz, 2008). Helma Lutz uses the word « regime » in the same way as Esping-Andersen (1990) does when he describes the relationship between the state, the market and the family. In the typology identified by Helma Lutz and her co-researchers, the « gender regime » gives an insight of the gender organization of the care work within the household, the « care regime » is at the center of the welfare state regulations that affect the distribution of care between the state, the family and the market, and the « migration regime » helps to analyse the flow of migrant workers in the sector of domestic work (H. Lutz, 2008, p.2). The book gives a European panorama of the phenomenon of migrant domestic work by discussing its « novelty » as a transnational economy of care since the 1970s, its repercussions on the gender and ethnic division of reproductive work and the role of welfare states regarding the commodification of domestic work and the subsidies allowed to the workers.

There have been pre-existing literature on migrant domestic workers in Europe during the 19th century as the need for domestic workers grew (Sarti, Chapter 6, 2008). At that time, authors made the hypothesis that technological revolution would lead to the disappearance of the servants as it would be much less time consuming to take care of the households ( Müller, Dienstbare-Geister, p 172-178). Nonetheless, after the WW2, the research on the topic multiplied as the number of migrant domestic workers increased in western societies, albeit solely from historians rather than from sociologists (Sarti, 2014). During the 1970’s and 1980’s gender scholars started to analyse this phenomenon from a gender perspective. The transnationalism of domestic work created new areas for sociological research that focussed on the specificities of this «new» phenomenon (Sarti, Chapter 6, 2008). Thus, the authors of the book often refer to the works of Anderson (1993, 2000), and Parreñas (2001) that contributed to highlight the « revival » of the domestic workers as a « care economy » and the working conditions of the migrant domestic (Lutz, 2008). Unlike the American literature, the European comparative studies were rare at the time of editing. This is why the book contributes to the debate as it enriches the European comparative literature of the migrant domestic

worker from a sociologist analysis (Denise L. Spitzer, 2010). Additionally, Helma Lutz stresses in her introduction the paucity of studies including the care regimes, the gender regimes and the migration regimes, the latter being largely ignored (Lutz, p. 5, 2008).

The authors justify their analysis with qualitative and quantitative data. As for the qualitative data, we find interviews of the workers and their employers, and participative observations. The interviews give an insight of the social mechanisms behind the phenomenon like the family pressure put on the shoulders of the transnational domestic worker to send money. The researchers point out the lack of precise data that make it difficult to create comparisons as there are unregistered domestic workers. That is why the part of undocumented migrant remains very blurred. Still, the authors use quantitative data from international and national statistic institute, and the OECD.

Based on this methodology, the findings give trends proving that « domestic work is not just a labour market ». From the analysis grid of the three regimes, the first articles question whether domestic work is a « business as usual ». We learn from the articles that « care work » kept its stigma of an « unproductive labour ». As welfare states reduced their allowances to the citizens, it favored unpaid domestic work performed by women within the household and underpaid illegal labour from undocumented women (Scrinzi, in Chapter 2, 2008). Thus the gendering of this care activity influenced its status. Moreover, it is not protected by law regulations. Many undocumented domestic workers don’t benefit from state’s subsidies (Helma Lutz, p. 7, 2008). Welfare states make the domestic market precarious in providing cash and tax credits to the citizens that lead to lower the domestic work value. We find this pattern in Britain and Spain where wives are the consumers (Williams and Gavanas, in Chapter 2, 2008). Moreover, global domestic work is highly regulated by migration policies (amnesties, quotas) that encourage or discourage this domestic work’s migration and advantage or disadvantage the workers as the informal work prevent them from state’s subsidies (Escruva and Skinner, in Chapter 8, 2008). But as Parreñas points out in the Chapter 7, even if the state provides advantages to the migrants, it does not necessarily led to its integration and installation into the society as racism constitues a strong pushback factor. In addition, global domestic work is characterized by the phenomenon of transnational mothering, that is to say migrant mothers abroad bringing up their children stayed in the country of origin. The mothers become then the female « breadwinner » of the family. That is not to say that gender inequalities have decreased with the female migration as the fathers delegate the children caring to the women of the extended families (RS Parreñas, in Chapter 7, 2008).

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