ABSTRACT
Literature on the role of the welfare state and international migration has emphasised the function of welfare programmes as ‘magnets’ that attract unwanted migrants. Recent research has shown that not only do the welfare state and migration regimes interact with each other, but that irregular migrant workers also play a crucial role in the provision of welfare services (Sciortino 2004b; Ungerson & Yeandle 2007). This chapter looks at the organisation of long-term care in Austria and the role migrant care workers play in providing domestic and care services in private households. It explores the ways in which Austrian welfare state policies have directly and indirectly attracted and relied on migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe and how this shapes the transnational care arena. However, the rise of ‘transnational care spaces’ that exist between Austria and its neighbouring countries is not exclusively the result of national welfare and migration policies. Transnational care spaces are also the result of the actions of migrants themselves – through organising care circuits and living transnational lives (Gendera 2007). This chapter focuses on the most relevant policy drivers and the complex organisational patterns and migrant networks in Central European care spaces. It also illustrates how this informal economy, with a great deal of effort on the part of the policymakers, has been integrated into the Austrian system of long-term care provision. Finally, taking a closer look at the regularisation of the informal care sector, I discuss the outcomes of these policies for Austrian households, the welfare state and migrant care workers themselves.
