Foreign domestic help
A foreign domestic help is a domestic help who is gainfully employed in a country other than one's own country.
General
The employment of foreign domestic help is subject to very different legal bases in the individual countries. Some states encourage immigration, others handle it restrictively. The legal status of domestic help is also regulated very differently. In particular, the poor legal situation of foreign domestic helpers in the Gulf States is a topic of public discussion.
The employment of foreign helpers in the household and in home care is discussed in Western European countries both as a socio-political problem in the sense of precarious working conditions , but also as a contribution to overcoming a care emergency .
The employment of foreign domestic helpers is also associated with undeclared work and illegal immigration .
The public discussion concerns, among other things, the extent of the illegal work involved . For many, however, it is not about punishing employers, but rather the question of the affordability of good care for sick people or those in need of long-term care outside of nursing homes in their private environment. There are organizations that legally employ and place such workers who are also covered by social security in their home country.
The household chores already generally require a large amount of time. Mainly, however, the commissioning family is concerned with the almost constant presence of a monitoring person in order to avoid harm to the sick person. This not only relates to (labor) legal aspects, but also moral and relationship aspects (keyword in psychology, e.g. role reversal). Arlie Russell Hochschild highlighted the contribution of emotional work when she described what she called the global chain of care . Migrant workers take on care and care tasks, while their own children stay in their home country and are looked after by family members or employees there; z. For example, Filipino doctors work as nurses in the USA.
The UN Migrant Workers Convention protects not only legal foreign migrant workers, but also illegally resident or illegally employed migrants. It came into force in 2003, but so far (as of 2019) there is almost no industrial or immigration country among the signatory states.
The situation in individual states
Western Europe
This form of labor migration has risen sharply in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since the Eastern European countries opened to the west in 1989/1995. In the meantime, with its services in the care of the elderly in these countries, it is helping to secure home care for many people with dementia .
Germany
Extent and economic aspects
According to various estimates, more than four million German private households regularly or repeatedly employ domestic help. Some of them are foreigners. Only some of them are in possession of a residence permit that allows such activity. Naturally, there is no precise information about the number of foreign domestic helpers working illegally. In 2005, around 40,000 people were named in the German statistics as employees subject to social insurance.
Foreign domestic helpers have been increasingly employed in Germany since 1995, when long-term care insurance was introduced , because families receive a “ cash amount at their disposal ” from this insurance when they look after people in need of care at home. There are different legal bases for different employment relationships.
Legal bases
Union citizens are generally entitled to freedom of movement (see EU citizens entitled to free movement ) and are therefore also allowed to work as domestic help on an independent or dependent basis without further permission. The only exception is for citizens of Croatia who do not yet have full freedom of movement for workers and who therefore need a work permit. The full free movement of workers for Croatians will be achieved by June 30, 2020 at the latest. For third-country nationals , the work permit law in Germany is regulated by the Residence Act , the Residence Ordinance and the Employment Ordinance.
The word domestic help generally refers to employees (mostly female) who work in a private household . German law on foreigners does not provide for any residence permits for cleaning or care personnel, as there is no recognized labor shortage in this sector. A legal move to Germany with the main purpose of performing such an activity is therefore out of the question. However, legal employment relationships can occur if the foreign domestic help has a residence permit that allows any form of employment anyway, e.g. B. as a family member of a German citizen acc. Section 28 subs. 1 of the Residence Act.
A model that has been illegal from the outset is when foreign helpers enter the country for three months with a Schengen visa or without a visa , since gainful employment in these cases is only permitted within the narrow limits of Section 17 (2) Residence Ordinance. This may then be repeated for the same person for years.
For tax treatment, see household employment .
Austria
The Home Care Act can be seen as the Austrian answer to the same problem. (Legal regulation in Austria since 2007)
France
In France there are models of a service check through which household services can be purchased.
See also
- Home and family care (job)
- AU Pair
- Care work # Care work and migration
- Gray market # Nurses
- Nannygate
literature
- Georg Neumann: Rescue from Poland. How home care actually works. Kreuz, Freiburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7831-3402-5 (experience with mother with dementia and counselor)
- Jörg Alt: Living in the shadow world - the problem complex illegal migration. New insights into the living situation of 'illegal' migrants in Munich and other cities in Germany. Loeper, Karlsruhe 2003, ISBN 3860594990 .
- Vera Dörzbach: I'm nice, like to help ... In: Heilberufe (magazine) , 10: 2005, Urban & Vogel, Munich 2005 ISSN 2190-2100 ( contains most of the suggestions for this article ).
- Anja Uhling, Stefan Hof: The main thing is not to the home? Eastern European Domestic help as caregivers. Interview with Juliane Schmidt. In: Dr. Med. Mabuse - magazine in health care. No. 157, Mabuse-Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main (September. 2005) ISSN 0173-430X .
- Peter Hanau, Susanne Peters-Lange: Part-time work. Mini jobs . The book for the TV series ARD-Ratgeber: Law . dtv Nomos 58113, Munich 2007. ISBN 3-423-58113-1 .
- Claudia Gather, Birgit Geissler, Maria S. Rerrich: World market private household , Westphalian steam boat, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-89691-215-2 (= forum women and gender research , volume 15).
Individual evidence
- ^ Qatar before the World Cup: Forced labor, abuse, violence. In: Handelsblatt . April 23, 2014, accessed March 25, 2015 .
- ↑ Maria S. Rerrich et all: World market private household , Westphalian steam boat, Münster 2007, epd November 17, 2006.
- ↑ TK-Online: Employees from Croatia ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Helma Lutz: Intime Strangers - Migrant Women as Household Workers in Western Europe. (No longer available online.) In: www.eurozine.com. August 31, 2007, archived from the original on October 13, 2007 ; Retrieved October 24, 2007 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ "Today we can speak of a feminization of migration," says Sigrid Metz-Göckel. The professor at the University of Dortmund has been leading a research project on the migration of Polish women to the Ruhr area since 2004 . According to Evangelical Press Service Nov. 17, 2006: Maids from all over the world ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Home care and care between quality requirements and costs. European solution approaches in comparison. (PDF; 149 kB) (No longer available online.) Institute for Economy, Labor and Culture (IWAK), University of Frankfurt am Main, October 2008, archived from the original on April 30, 2014 ; Retrieved on November 21, 2009 (international conference on October 20 and 21, 2008 at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Text of International Labor Conference Convention 189: Decent work for domestic workers
- The Austrian The Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor is preparing a draft ordinance that will enable caregivers from the new EU member states to legally work in the field of care and support for people in need of care in Austrian private households above the marginal earnings threshold and with full social security protection. Sept 2006.
- German Institute for Applied Nursing Research: Project report: Situation and needs of families with Central and Eastern European domestic help. 2009, Cologne (online as PDF file)
- Employment of foreign helpers in home care (in PflegeWiki , as amended on February 15, 2008)
- The mini job center . As of January 1, 2006, the minijob center of the Federal Miners' Union will also register for the statutory accident insurance for mini-jobs in private households .
- Central foreign and specialist placement (ZAV) of the Federal Employment Agency in Bonn on the topic via www.arbeitsagentur.de → Citizens → Work and Profession → Placement → Household help (forms, leaflets on job offers, employment of foreign household help, placement as PDF download)
- International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families , United Nations, February 23, 2011
