Abstract

The article presents an effort to analyse the reproduction of labour of migrant elderly carers in their low-status jobs. This will be done by looking at the consequences of live-in domestic work on migrant women from Ukraine working as carers of elderly people in Athens. The study utilises a Marxo-Weberian framework that focuses on both working conditions and perceptions of migrant workers. It is argued that the emotional demands related to domestic work result in migrants perceiving their tasks as an extension of familial relationships and obligations. These employment relationships are defined as "pseudo-familial" and form the basis of deference in domestic work. Combined with the structural barriers in the labour market, deference represents the subjective element of the entrapment of migrants in their job.