ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the institutional background that enabled the development of a live-in care market in Switzerland. It presents the context in which home care agencies offering live-in care emerged in Switzerland. The chapter outlines key developments in the live-in care market and show how live-in care work is becoming socially acceptable in Switzerland. Home care agencies selling live-in care, on the other hand, market exactly the opposite: time for care. In Switzerland, in contrast to other service work and the industrial sector, care work in direct employment in private households is not subject to a generally binding collective agreement or to labour law. The development of private for-profit live-in care businesses has not gone unnoticed. Several organisations have shown interest in live-in care work. A member of the National Council, Barbara Schmid-Federer, filed a parliamentary request to the Federal Council seeking to improve live-in care workers’ working conditions in 2012.
