Impressions and reflections after the public event: What’s next for Austrian carers in private households?

At the end of November, the public event “Making the invisible work visible: live-in care in Austria” took place at the Urania in Vienna. With its four-hour program, the well-attended event festively marked the end of our research project. Here are some impressions of the event and reflections on possible next steps by our project team:

Andreas Schadauer (FORBA) and Johanna Neuhauser (Institute of Sociology, University of Vienna/FORBA) presented the most important survey results, which were summarized and described in detail along the following main topics:

• Stress and exploitation at the workplace
• Experiences of violence
• Low income, insufficient social security and risk of poverty
• Lack of information before starting work
• Dependency on placement agencies
• Necessary improvements for public authorities, interest groups and the monitoring of working conditions
• Lack of future prospects

Almost 1,500 migrant carers working in Austria participated in the online survey and offerred a sober picture of the Austrian live-in care. The conclusion is clear: if care workers are to continue working in Austrian households in the future, there is an urgent need for action.

Both a short and a long version of the survey results are available on our project website: https://24h-unsichtbar.at/de/umfrageergebnisse/

The panel discussion was introduced by a very informative and touching interview with the Slovakian care worker Csilla V.. During the conversation lead by moderator Anastasia Lopez, the audience gained insights into the everyday life of the migrant care worker, the cross-border commuter migration and the specific working conditions. In addition, the discussion also addressed the stress caused by the separation from one's own family and social environment in the home country.

Here are some quotes from Csilla V., care worker:

“The next challenge is of course the fee, which I can't negotiate myself. The fact is that the placement agency does that. I can only say yes or no. After 20 years of work, my fee has increased by a quarter and the fee that my placement agency charges the family and me at the same time has more than doubled in those years.”

“Oour people in need of care (from our home countries) naturally remain without care. The people who could look after them are gone. The eldery homes that could meet this need are also overcrowded. I worked like this for years: I commuted to Austria while my mother was already in need of care. I paid for someone to look after her from my own money, i.e. privately. I looked after people here (in Austria) so that other people could look after my mother in Slovakia.”

“My greatest wish for the future would be that placement services are not left to private, profit-oriented companies. It should be a state task. In a social sphere, I just can't understand letting profit-oriented agencies work so freely. That should be a state task - and then we could talk about many other changes."

The event concluded with a panel discussion in which stakeholders relevant to the live-in care sector took part. Important inputs for the professional discussion were provided by:

• Silvia Rosoli, Head of the “Health Professions Law and Care Policy” Department, Vienna Chamber of Labor
• Katharina Meichenitsch, Deputy Head of Section and Head of the “Care Provision” Group, Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection
• Andreas Herz, Chairman of the professional group “Personal Counseling and Live-in Care”, Austrian Federal Economic Chamber
• Christoph Lipinski, expert of the trade union initiative vidaflex, vida
• Simona Durisova, expert from IG24 - interest group of live-in care workers
• Birgit Meinhard-Schiebel, President of the interest group for family caregivers

We would like to thank all stakeholders for their participation and interest in our study.

A crucial point of the public event was identifying the criteria of bogus self-employment in the current model of live-in care in Austria. Possible solutions - such as strengthening the regular employment model or stricter regulations and state control of the self-employed model - remained open. These issues must be further addressed by politicians, state institutions and interest groups - also with the involvement of scientific research.

In the long version of the survey results, the project team has already formulated specific recommendations for action that can serve as the basis for further systemic improvements.

We hope that this event marks the beginning of a longer, constructive collaboration between all those involved in order to sustainably improve the working conditions in the live-in care in Austria and to make these working conditions just.

We also wish to express our thanks to all partners and funders who made the project possible:

AK Digitization Fund

The Institute of Sociology at the University of Vienna

CuraFAIR - contact point for 24-hour carers (Volkshilfe).