Between migrant care work and new occupational welfare tools: Changing home care arrangements in Italy

Abstract

Austerity measures on services provision, introduced due to recent economic crises, have stimulated the search for innovative welfare solutions, including options that are not directly or entirely funded by public sources. In Italy, recent legislation has promoted the development of occupational welfare (OW) measures, aimed at strengthening the supply of services to support employees with informal (elder) care responsibilities. This paper aims to describe how the newly introduced OW schemes might innovate existing care arrangements, by identifying their impact on the different actors involved in home care provision (care recipients, family carers, home care service providers and migrant care workers), as well as at a macro level in terms of promoting social innovation. The international relevance of the Italian case comes from the fact that it is one of the more representative familistic care regimes, largely characterized by home care provided by informal carers and migrant care workers (MCW). The importance of Italian OW schemes is increasing, and in 2018 their presence in company-level bargaining agreements grew by more than 15%. A rapid review of the literature and expert interviews allowed us to describe the complex Italian OW schemes system, and to identify the positive implications of their application for the country’s long-term care (LTC) context, underlining what makes these measures a clear example of “social innovation” likely to have a future positive impact on home-based care in Italy.