Abstract

Over recent decades, migrant care and domestic work in private households has evolved into an extensive global market. In the European context, the analysis of (national) welfare regimes rarely acknowledges the repercussions of this development. I will discuss the term welfare regime as introduced by Gøsta Esping-Andersen from an intersectional gender and migration perspective and suggest an amendment of the regime concept which critically scrutinizes both the de- and the re-commodification of labor area. In addition, I will use Nancy Fraser’s pressing question, of whether society can be commodities all the way down, to call into question the neoliberal understanding of the state-family-market triangle. I argue that where a market gains the upper hand and care is considered as a fictitious commodity (Polanyi), this will have serious (unwanted) effects for the development of society and its reproduction.

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