COVID-19 and (Im)migrant Carers in Italy: The Production of Carer Precarity

Author:

Dotsey Senyo1ORCID,Lumley-Sapanski Audrey2,Ambrosini Maurizio1

Affiliation:

1. Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, 20122 Milan, Italy

2. The Rights Lab, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

Abstract

This article explores the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on foreign health workers in Italy. Focusing on caregivers in Lombardia, we explore what we call carer precarity, an emergent form of precarity resulting from pandemic restrictions exacerbating existing socio-legal vulnerabilities. The duality of the carer role—complete household and societal reliance in addition to simultaneous socio-legal marginalization—shapes their precarity. Utilizing data from 44 qualitative interviews with migrant care workers in live-in and daycare facilities that were conducted prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, we demonstrate how the migrant populations working in the care sector were particularly adversely affected due to their migratory status and working conditions. Migrants are excluded from or have differential access to a range of benefits or entitlements and are employed in undervalued work. Workers with live-in employment experienced tiered access to benefits plus the spatiality of restrictions, resulting in their near-complete confinement. Drawing on Gardner (2022) and Butler’s (2009) conceptualizations of precarity, we describe the emergence of a new form of pandemic-induced spatial precarity for migrant care workers at the nexus of gendered labor, limited mobility, and the spatiality of and a hierarchy of rights associated with migratory status. The findings have implications for healthcare policy and migration scholarship.

Funder

CARIPLO Foundation of Milan

Publisher

MDPI AG

Subject

Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Reference73 articles.

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2. Ruhs, M. (2023, January 15). Expanding Legal Labour Migration Pathways to the EU: Will This Time Be Different? Istituto Affari Internazionale. Available online: https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaicom2095.pdf.

3. van Hooren, F. (2020). COVID-19, Migrant Workers and the Resilience of Social Care in Europe, European University Institute. Available online: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/70318.

4. Confronted with COVID-19: Migrant live-in care during the pandemic;Leiblfinger;Glob. Soc. Policy,2021

5. Employment Precarity, COVID-19 Risk, and Workers’ Well-Being During the Pandemic in Europe;Wu;Work. Occup.,2022

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