On 31 July 2025 various TraFaDy members gathered to start an intense discussion on 24h care workers (often called LiveIns).
This topic is of high importance in the context of transnational families. In many European countries, care for elderly people in private households by care workers from abroad, so-called 24-hour or live-in care, is an often used form of support that has both advantages and disadvantages. Estimates suggest that between one and two million predominantly female workers are employed in this field in Western Europe. These women themselves often have underage children or relatives in need of care in their home countries whom they cannot look after during the weeks or months when they are abroad. Moreover, very often they do not have the same protection under labour law as women in regular employment and are often paid below existing minimum wages.
TraFaDy members will pick up this topic by a series of online meetings and one meeting of Working Group 6, showing different perspectives and situations in the respective countries and discuss potential measures to approach the challenges.
The first meeting was held on 31 July 2025. A very interesting input by Ursula Trummer on the situation of 24h carers in Austria set the scene for the meeting. She highlighted the situation of the people in need of care as well as the carers, particularly in Austria. She explained the particular regulation in Austria to find some protection to both parties.
In the following discussion, a lot of important topics were mentioned that participants thought should be highlighted in the upcoming process. There already was a glimpse showing that situations vary a lot between the situations. For example, Austria having more regulation in this field as other states, like Italy. Other discussions circled around the need of proper qualification of the care workers. For all mentioned countries the matter of affordability arised. This also applies for sender countries, as in those countries the need of adequate care for the elderly is increasingly needed. It was mentioned that even though adequate regulation of these arrangements were highly needed, those should address the needs of all sides, which includes the needs of the families that stay behind. Another topic of high importance that should be regarded is the situation of the countries not being in the European Union as there are many more difficult framework conditions for both those societies and the individual care workers and their families.