The impact of migrant work in the elder care sector: recent trends and empirical evidence in Italy L’impatto delle assistenti familiari straniere nel settore della cura agli anziani: tendenze recenti ed evidenze empiriche in Italia

Italy is characterized by a very high and increasing demand for elder care but,paradoxically, also by a surprisingly low level of public service provision in this sector.Due to current demographic, economic and socio-cultural trends, the potentialavailability of informal family care has been decreasing while, on the other hand, stillstrong familistic attitudes have so far limited the emergence of formal*both home and residential*care services. The ‘cash-for-care’ orientation of the Italian welfare system, with direct payments prevailing over in-kind services, has thus gradually developed intoa care regime where monetary transfers to dependent (older) people are often used toprivately employ migrant care workers. This phenomenon is analyzed in the context oftwo different studies (EUROFAMCARE and DIPO), in order to understand howmigrant care work has been affecting both family care and professional care work inItaly. The main findings suggest that the widespread employment of migrant careworkers*propelled by public care allowances*has certainly relieved many families from most burdensome care tasks, but at the same time partly ‘crowded out’ formal careservices. Care quality issues remain. however, largely under-investigated, as do caredrain effects in sending countries.