‘This big shadow that we need to turn into light’ – How labour intermediaries moralise commodified domestic care work

Author(s) : Christiane Meyer-Habighorst, Christina Mittmasser, Karin Schwiter

Source : https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X251377078

Abstract:

Domestic care workers have long been largely invisible in labour statistics and in public and policy debates. The emergence of digital labour intermediaries has exposed domestic care workers to a new, but problematic, individual visibility: to find jobs and customers, they must create digital public profiles with personal information. Accordingly, scholars emphasise that this individualised visibility poses risks to privacy and security of domestic care workers. We argue in this paper that labour market intermediaries create not only an individualised visibility of domestic care workers, but also a new collective visibility that leads to more public debate about their working conditions and societal recognition. Methodologically, our argument is based on qualitative interviews with founders and managing directors of companies who mediate domestic care work in Switzerland. Drawing on the concept and literature on market moralisation, we consider these companies to be moral entrepreneurs. Based on our interest in how they frame the social value of commodified care work, we applied a discourse-analytic perspective. We found that the moral entrepreneurs use four central narratives to highlight their societal contribution. They claim to formalise care work, increase the public recognition of care work, emancipate women and integrate migrants. Based on these findings, we discuss these moralising narratives as ambivalent: although they reify a problematic feminisation, migrantisation and neoliberalisation of domestic care work, they enhance the collective visibility of care workers. Subsequently, the increased visibility might contribute to put working conditions in domestic care on the public agenda and lead to positive change.