Caring off the Clock: Cape Verdean Eldercare Workers from Praia to Lisbon

• In Event: 015 - Regular Session. Care Work/Caring Labor

Abstract

This article captures the everyday lived realities of West African eldercare workers who migrate from the former Portuguese colony archipelago of Cape Verde, West Africa to Lisbon, Portugal for care work. Cape Verdean eldercare workers are caught in the middle of four contemporary issues: Portugal's ongoing economic crisis, the global care deficit, aging in Europe, and an increasingly racist and anti-immigrant European social climate. I ask: What brings Cape Verdean women to work in eldercare services in Lisbon, Portugal? How do eldercare workers negotiate their complex family and work responsibilities? Through in-depth intensive participation observation of Cape Verdean elder carers' work, public and “private” spaces and semi-structured interviews, I uncover these working women's resilience and struggles to maintain their own households through their migration strategies.

Author

• Celeste Curington, University of Massachusetts-Amherst