An International Solution for a Domestic Problem: The Demand for Migrant Care Workers

Why does the welfare state influence migration policy? Recent empirical work has shown that states with less generous welfare state policies and more women in the workforce admit greater numbers of migrant women willing to work as care providers, and favor legal routes for the general admission of migrant care providers (Gastineau-Grimes 2012). In this study, I select two states characterized by ‘less generous’ care policies and ‘open’ migration policy to identify and explain the mechanisms that prompt the creation of legislation that targets domestic care workers as a solution for care needs. Canada and Australia are both liberal welfare states with similar spending on childcare policies. Likewise, both states are among the top immigrant-receiving countries and have ‘seemingly’ open migration policies for women, evident from the high percentages of migrant women employed as domestic care workers in each country. Even so, Canada has a specific policy for women willing to work as domestic care workers, while Australia does not have an explicit, recognized policy. I use process tracing to consider the domestic socioeconomic conditions, normative frames for childcare policy, and relevant domestic/international actors that explain why some states carve out a formal niche for migrant women to work as care providers, and others do not. In Canada, the women’s movement did not consistently associate childcare policy with women’s equality and/or economic benefits for the state. Because a national childcare policy was not available across all the provinces, unaffordable and inaccessible care opened a door for migrant women to provide care for children while Canadian women worked in formal employment. Working women gained more options for equality in the workplace, but at the same time became dependent on a problematic policy that included a live-in requirement and little protections for migrant care-givers. In Australia, the women’s movement was more successful in consistently tying childcare policy to both women’s equality and to the economy, which overshadowed the need for legislation to specifically target migrant childcare workers until recently. The cases show that women’s movements in different countries invoke different frames to push for childcare provisions based on public perceptions, government support, and the economic landscape. The implications are dramatic for the citizenship rights of migrant women.

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