Beyond ‘women’s work’. Gender, ethnicity and the management of paid care work in non-profit domiciliary services in Italy

Scrinzi, F. (2019) Beyond ‘women’s work’. Gender, ethnicity and the management of paid care work in non-profit domiciliary services in Italy. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 17(4), pp. 441-456. (doi: 10.1080/15562948.2018.1538472)

Abstract

Based on qualitative data, this article focuses on management practices in social cooperatives operating as non-profit providers of domiciliary care services in Italy. Their livelihood is eroded by the presence of migrant live-in care-givers, who are privately employed, inexpensive and often irregular. This competition is not only economic but also symbolic, as it jeopardises the managers’ attempts to define care work as a skilled job and reproduces notions of care as naturally feminine ‘women’s work’. The article analyses the strategies adopted by the managers in order to negotiate this competition, and shows how these challenge dominant gendered constructions of care work.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Scrinzi, Dr Francesca
• Authors: Scrinzi, F.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1556-2948
• ISSN (Online): 1556-2956
• Published Online: 13 December 2018
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
• First Published: First published in Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 2018 17(4):441-456
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher