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Informalisation of Work and Workers’ Voice in Welfare Markets for In-Home Domestic/Care Services in Germany

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The Dynamics of Welfare Markets

Part of the book series: Work and Welfare in Europe ((RECOWE))

Abstract

Welfare markets for home-based domestic/care services are relatively new developments in Germany. Apitzsch and Shire examine how markets for home-based eldercare, childcare, and domestic labour have developed in terms informalisation, with a focus on labour force dynamics and workers’ voice. Their analysis shows, first, how regulations, which have created rather than mitigated the social and legal precarity of in-home domestic/care labour markets result in stagnation, or what Nullmeier calls, the failure of welfare markets. Second, it shows that efforts to organise and represent care workers in public facilities have largely failed to transfer to the in-home sector. Unions have engaged in advocacy and information campaigns, but the sustainability of their activities, especially for migrant in-home labour, remains contingent.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This benefit was stopped in 2015 after the German constitutional court ruled against it, on the basis of federal state competencies.

  2. 2.

    According to these latest statistics, more than half of children under three were in care facilities in the Eastern German states, but just under one-third in West Germany, but with quotas over 40 percent in the major cities Hamburg and Berlin. Overall, the quota of children under one year is very low, under 2 percent.

  3. 3.

    Though considerable heterogeneity exists within the day mother market sector, with some entrepreneurial day mothers with university education enticing high-income families to pay higher fees for services like English language care. Only about 16 percent of day mothers have such higher qualifications (Statistisches Bundesamt 2020, Table 36, p. 57).

  4. 4.

    A reform of long-term care insurance to extend eligibility to lower levels of dependency, for example, in cases of dementia, pushed up the share from 73 percent in 2015 to 76 percent in 2017.

  5. 5.

    Unregistered work covered both native and migrant women. German women were considered to be mainly housewives, well protected by the income and social protections of their male breadwinner husbands, and thus not in need of ‘real’ employment relations, while the supply of unregistered migrant workers mainly from Eastern Europe was encouraged by the transition measures imposed by the German government prohibiting the employment of citizens of new EU member states, which began to expire in 2011.

  6. 6.

    Marginal employment in Germany is tax-free, and even after reforms in 2013, most persons in marginal employment are exempted from social contributions. Employers however, are obliged to contribute 30 percent of wages to pension, health, and tax funds. Private households as employers however, are obliged to pay less than half of these contributions, some of which may be exempted further in cases where domestic workers are covered by their partners’ employee health insurance.

  7. 7.

    WIEGO is a global network of organisations such as trade unions, scientists, and practitioners promoting research and advocacy for women in the informal economy. It played a prominent role on campaigns for the ratification of the ILO Convention 189 in several countries.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sociological Research Institute (SOFI) Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Birgit Apitzsch

  2. University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

    Karen Shire

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  1. Birgit Apitzsch
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  2. Karen Shire
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Correspondence to Birgit Apitzsch .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nantes, Nantes, France

    Clémence Ledoux

  2. University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

    Karen Shire

  3. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Franca van Hooren

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Apitzsch, B., Shire, K. (2021). Informalisation of Work and Workers’ Voice in Welfare Markets for In-Home Domestic/Care Services in Germany. In: Ledoux, C., Shire, K., van Hooren, F. (eds) The Dynamics of Welfare Markets. Work and Welfare in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56623-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56623-4_13

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