Migrant care work in Sweden. Sustainable solution for an ageing society or disruption of the Nordic welfare state?

Sweden has one of the most comprehensive elder care systems in Europe, with generous public spending, universal services, and a large public sector of care provision. However, the landscape of elder care is changing and so is the composition of the elder care workforce: During the last years the share of foreign-born workers in the elder care sector doubled and now accounts for one third of the workforce. The care profession formerly dominated by white Swedish-born women is increasingly carried out by migrant care workers. This dissertation project explores this highly relevant phenomenon to provide a comprehensive account of the role and importance of migrant care work in Sweden. It is an in-depth case study incorporating both national and local policy levels. The analysis is based on qualitative expert interviews with three different groups of experts as well as quantitative labour market statistics.
The thesis shows that migrant workers have become an integral part of the Swedish elder care sector. With increasing staff shortages and low qualification requirements, elder care work presents an open and easy entry into the labour market for unemployed and newly arrived migrants. At the same time there is an increasing social stratification of the care workforce along the lines of gender, migrancy, race, and residency. The analysis sheds light on this ambivalence of migrant care work in Sweden: On the one hand, the integration of unemployed and newly arrived migrant workers into care presents a socially and economically sustainable solution to address challenges such as the ageing of society, the increasing staff shortages in elder care, and the demand for comprehensive integration programmes. On the other hand, the (re-)assignment of caring responsibilities to migrant ‘others’ and the increasing stratification of the workforce seem to question the overarching ideals of the Swedish welfare state as caring, egalitarian, gender equal, and migration-friendly.