Paper short abstract:

In transnational care relocation to CEE countries, seniors are moved to make use of more affordable care. Care entitlements across borders thereby become “enclosed” resources for other projects and resonate with overlapping histories, shifting boundaries and and ambiguous centre-periphery relations.

Paper long abstract:

One well researched response to the care crises in many European countries is the transnationalization of care by hiring a live-in care worker, resulting in a ‘care gap’ in the places such workers leave behind. In this paper we report on a project which looks at the reverse phenomenon: care relocation, in which German speaking seniors are relocated to places in Central Eastern Europe (CZ, SL, HU, PL) where care is more affordable due to lower labour costs. Care relocation can be seen as an emblematic example of the marketization of care and a niche phenomenon within Europe's transnational care landscape. Social citizenship entitlements thereby become "enclosed" resources within the arbitrage of economic inequalities as entitlements are carried across national borders. Most care homes are located in regions characterized by shifting borders, and contested German and Habsburg-Hungarian history, adding historical complexity to the story. Some serve only German-speaking patients, others serve local, wealthier elderly people as well. They are run by former migrant care workers and by international companies, bringing labour migration, and other not care related sectors into the picture, such as real estate investment and hospitality.

In this paper we will anlayse how this marginal and specific “fix” of the care crises does not only respond to the individual care needs of families but “encloses” entitlements stemming from social citizenship as capital for other projects, reviving overlapping histories and newly negotiated centre-periphery relations in the entangling of unequal welfare states in Europe.