Migration and the Marketisation of Social Care: The Employment of Migrant Workers under Cash-for-Care Schemes in the UK
This research, to be carried out by Isabel Shutes and funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (Oct 2009 to Sept 2013, 0.5 fte), will build on recently completed research by COMPAS on the role of migrant care workers in ageing societies. It will examine the direct employment of migrant workers by older people under cash-for-care schemes in the UK. These schemes give older people and other care users who are entitled to publicly subsidised social care the option of receiving a cash payment that can be used to directly employ a care worker. Cash-for-care schemes have been adopted across western welfare states and are seen as central to enabling greater ‘choice and control’ for care users over their care. The research will explore the interconnections between these developments in social care and migration by analysing the dynamics of choice and control in relation to the experiences of care users and migrant care workers. It will contribute to a series of publications and a seminar on the interconnections of migration and social care regimes.