THE IMPACT OF CARE, GENDER AND MIGRATION REGIMES ON MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORK: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL

In the light of the recent developments occurred in the domestic sector in Europe and the debate on the externalisation of domestic and care activities, this research explores the impact of gender, care and migration regimes on migrant domestic work. While the number of migrant domestic workers is increasing everywhere in Europe, the cross-national differences in the ethnicisation of the sector remain significant and depend on multiple factors. The literature on domestic work has long recognised the role of welfare/care regimes in determining the degree of externalisation of domestic and care activities and the role of migration regimes in attracting migrant workers. Additionally, the gender regime can also be crucial to understand the recent developments of paid domestic work in Europe.In this dissertation, I present the findings of a quantitative study conducted at the European level, aimed at exploring the interconnection of care, gender and migration regimes and their impact on migrant domestic work in Europe. For this, I have conducted a two-step analysis. First, I have created three typologies of countries, one for each regime, based on relevant indicators, which allowed me to identify clusters of countries that behave similarly with respect to the three regimes. Then, I have tested the effect of the typologies on the ethnicisation of the domestic sector. The findings suggest that the three regimes do have an effect on the concentration of migrants in the domestic sector, and that this effect is greater when the three regimes are taken into account simultaneously.