CfP International Research Conference “Decent Care Work?” Frankfurt 27-29 May 2020

The Goethe University invites abstracts from researchers at all stages of their career.  

Deadline for submssions 31 December 2019


The Conference theme is “Decent Care Work? Transnational Home Care Arrangements”.

Conference Information:

The ageing of industrialized societies in combination with the absence of an adequate (welfare) state response is engendering an alarming deficit in care work. This has paved the way for the commodification of care, formerly a typical case of feminized, reproductive work, carried out informally and unpaid within the family. This conference examines if and how a sea change concerning the commodification and formalization of elderly care work is gradually affecting the public understanding of “decent” work and “decent” care. Thereby, it draws on the findings of a collaborative research project of transnationally operating care agencies, which recruit migrant live-in carers from Central and Eastern Europe for work in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The conference seeks to bring this study into dialogue with the findings of current international research. It offers new insights by bringing together researchers in the fields of migration, labor, gender, care markets as well as care workers’ organizations. By highlighting deficiencies in the economic, political and social regulation of elderly care work, it aims to shed light on the fundamental contradictions between decent care and decent work.

 Information on Abstract Submission:

 Abstracts may be submitted until December 31, 2019 through the ConfTool application at the following address: https://www.conftool.com/decent-care-work2020/.

Participants will be notified of the Program Committee’s decision by early February 2020.

For more details send an email to: decentcarework@soz.uni-frankfurt.de.

Note! The organizers are offering a reduced fee for those living in Central and Eastern Europe and from other countries according to the International Sociological Association’s country categories B and C.