Migrant Men Doing ‘Women’s Work’

Abstract

This chapter explores the networks that mediate the entry of migrant men into domestic/care services in Italy, and their experiences in this feminised job. Catholic institutions play an important role in this context by providing informal services, including training, recruitment, and administrative support. The practices of these ‘gate-keepers’ of domestic/care services contribute to establishing a gendered and racialised division of work, by reproducing the construction of the migrants’ respectable ‘domestic masculinity’. The chapter argues that the presence of migrant men serves to challenge the sex-typing of the job. Yet, gender segregation is reproduced, as migrant men are able to access a wider and better-paid range of occupations than women.