NARRATIVES ON WORKING HOURS: AN ANALYSIS OF “PIONEER” BROKERING AGENCIES FOR LIVE-IN CARE WORK IN GERMANY

• Authors: Habel Simone
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In the “grey market” for live-in care work in Germany, brokering agencies are playing an increasingly important role in shaping working conditions. Drawing on six expert interviews with “pioneer” brokering agencies, this article centres on these agencies’ narratives on working hours. The analysis reveals that these agencies’ understanding of working hours is contradictory: working hours are either referred to as a fixed, inter-subjectively measurable category or as a subjective phenomenon, leaving scope for divergent opinions. These perspectives are evident in the assumption of an (in)separability of working and leisure time, and in the understanding of leisure time as a personal need or a valid demand. In this context, constructing working hours as a subjective category thus functions as a legitimation narrative for extensive working hours. These findings are connected to the contradictory interpellations of live-in care workers, such as “fictive kin” and “manager of the self”, and to the underlying understandings of work.

Keywords

EN

LIVE-IN CARE; HOME-BASED CARE; MIGRANT CARE WORK; BROKERING AGENCIES; WORKING CONDITIONS; WORKING HOURS; GERMANY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociológia (Sociology)
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 463 – 482

Contributors

author

Habel Simone

• Nell-Breuning-Institut, Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Offenbacher Landstr. 224, 60599 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia.2021.53.5.17