Migrant Care Labour, Covid-19, and the Long-Term Care Crisis: Achieving Solidarity for Care Providers and Recipients

Abstract

AbstractGlobally there is a care crisis in terms of the quantity of care needed for an aging population and the quality of both the care provided and work conditions of those providing this care. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and heighted this crisis of care. In this chapter we review the issue with a particular focus on long-term care (LTC) facilities and the type and skill mix of labour, including the degree to which immigrant workers are over-represented in this sector. We offer some conceptual reflections on elder care as a matter of social justice and ethics in terms of those needing and providing care. These concerns take on a specific global dimension when we understand the transnationalisation of care, or the care provisioning function of what are termed global care chains. We contextualise how this migrant labour is positioned within this sector through international comparisons of funding models for LTC, which also allows us to understand the structural conditions within which this globally-sourced workforce is positioned. We then highlight two significant contributing factors to the current LTC crisis that were intensified and exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic using Ontario, Canada, as an example: the role of the private sector and the unsustainable extraction of profits from this service, and the gendered and racialised devaluing of migrant labour so essential to the sector.