Eldercare work, migrant care workers, affective care and subjective proximity

Abstract

Objectives. To document and explore the experience of migrant care workers providing health and social care to the elderly in institutional care settings and in the homes of the elderly in the community in New Zealand with a particular focus on the affective components of care work.Design. This qualitative study involved conducting face-to-face, open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 29 migrant care workers in the eldercare sector in the cities of Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand. Participants were recruited through various agencies focusing on aged care and engaged with migrant eldercare workers and snowballing through participant referral. Sample size was determined when saturation was reached. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, themes were identified and then analysed drawing on a body of theoretical work in the fields of emotional anthropology and moral geography and the international empirical literature addressing migrant eldercare workers.Results. As with the international research in this field we found that these workers were vulnerable to exploitation, the workforce is largely feminised and stereotypical understandings of racial groups and national characteristics informed recruitment and the workplace experience. Here attributing gradients of affect to particular migrant groups in the workforce was the main mechanism employed to establish worker worth and difference. Identifying with these gradients of affect enabled these eldercare workers to demonstrate that they met the moral and ethical requirements of permanent residency and ultimately citizenship. Eldercare workers in the home were vulnerable to ‘blurred emotional boundaries’ and care recipient demand for greater emotional commitment. The migrant eldercare workers in this study all shared vulnerable residential status and many feared they would never obtain permanent residency or citizenship. All had family who remained in the Philippines and towards whom they had an obligation to substitute care support.Conclusion. Central to understanding how this labour force issue is experienced by both caregivers and the elderly is the notion of subjective proximity and how emotional and moral trajectories serve to mediate the connection between the eldercare worker and workplace, the Filipino migrant eldercare relationship with employers, agencies and institutions; and, the transnational nature of this mobility and social and actual citizenship.