Migrant domestic workers

A foreign domestic help is a domestic help who is employed in a country other than their own state. The employment of foreign nurses in the home and in home care is in Western European countries is a socio-political problem in the sense of insecure jobs, often associated with illegal work and illegal immigration. This form of labor migration is numerically risen sharply in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since the opening up of Eastern European countries to the west 1989/1995. Meanwhile, she is wearing in these countries with their performance in the elderly to secure home care of many sick people with dementia.

Extent and economic aspects

According to various estimates, more than four million German households employ regular or repeated domestic help. A large part of them are foreigners. Only part of it has a legal residence permit. Many foreign assistants travel on a tourist visa for three months. This is repeated in the same individual may then over the years. Accurate information can not give it, as those relationships ( and possibly also for the social security system in those countries) remain the " cost savings " of employer - families illegally long. As social insurance workers in 2005 were called in the German statistics about 40,000 people.

The domestic activities require already generally have a large amount of time. Mostly it's the commissioning family but at an almost constant presence of a supervisor in order to avoid damage to the sick person. This means that not only ( labor ) legal aspects but also moral and relational aspects connected (keyword in psychology, for example, the role reversal). Arlie Russell Hochschild turned out the contribution of emotion work as she described a phenomenon they called the global care chain. It migrant workers take care and nursing tasks while at the same time stick to their own children in the home country and being cared for by family members or employees; eg working Filipino doctors than nurses in the United States.

Legal bases

The alien status has specific legal bases for an employment consequence. For example, in Germany has the Aliens Act ( Switzerland and Austria Equivalent legislation, in particular concerning the visa ) are observed, since the stay is neither tourism nor studying. Sociologically is spoken by labor migration. Occasionally, the legal position with Au Pair inserts is used as a possible basis. The work permit is legal, as the main component of the Immigration Act, regulated in Germany in the Residence Act.

The word domestic help generally refers to workers ( predominantly female) who work in a private household. Remarkable is also the legal relationship between the employer and the employee; especially a family as an employer (especially in the form of the employment contract and the mandatory health insurance ). Due to the scope of the employment of foreign nurses in home care in the DA-CH countries, this has particular socio-political consequences posed as the protection of employees in the respective social security system, the issue of precarious work.

Foreign domestic helpers are since 1995, since the introduction of care, increasingly employed in Germany, because families get from this insurance a "Cash Amount at leisure " when they serve in need of care at home. There are different legal bases for different jobs.

Germany does not grant residence permits for cleaning or child care personnel, because in this sector no labor shortages is recognized. Since January 2005, Eastern European people can get a maximum of three year residence permit to work in homes of elderly and dependent people especially. Other states, such as Italy, Greece and Spain, led programs for legal recruitment for a live-in domestic workers who live in the employer's household.

In France, there models of service checks can be purchased by the thrifty services.

The discussion in the public concerns, among other things, the extent of the associated moonlighting. For many it is not to punish the employer and give trickle, but the question of affordability good care of ill or long term need of care outside of nursing homes in their private surroundings. There are organizations that deal with such powers legally and convey that are socially insured in your home country.