The Problem of Skill Waste among Highly Skilled Migrant Women in the UK Care Sector

Abstract

The widespread practice of recruiting highly skilled migrant women for care work has been a major strategy for the new global care industry (Cuban 2013; Kofman et al. 2000).This chapter discusses a case study about the ways the domestic care sector in England captured the labour of highly skilled migrant women (HSMW). Although statistical accounts of immigrants in the care sector in England exist, they compose 20% of this workforce and are mostly female; there is practically no information on these care assistants’ backgrounds, including their education levels and former professional occupations. It is as if they are an invisible labour population whose stories have yet to be told. We asked why so many women professionals migrated to become care assistants and why they persisted despite the difficulties they faced. More specifically, questions were posed as to why professional women migrated for jobs for which they were overqualified and what strategies they used to manage both their decisions and disappointments. The insights for this chapter are based on the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) research (2008–2010). Sixty women who were care assistants to the elderly migrated to England from selective care-labour-exporting countries (i.e., India and the Philippines). The study focused on the participants’ downward mobility.1