In this International Domestic Workers Day, EFFE salutes all workers who are contributing to make homes a better place by dedicating themselves to improving the everyday lives of care receivers.
Today, we celebrate the dedication of nearly 10 million of workers of the PHS sector in Europe who are employed in private households, enabling countless families to improve work-life balance.
Domestic workers contribute to providing part of the solution to societal challenges of primary importance: support for the ageing of the population, support for the participation of women in the labor market, support for the birth rate, the creation of declared jobs, the emergence of social rights and the recognition of new skills for domestic workers and the dignified integration of migrants.
EFFE calls on the European Institutions and Member States to provide concrete tools to support the provision of professional domestic & home care services in the formal economy rather than in the shadow economy. The lack of policy framework for the sector, both at EU and national levels, strengthens the exclusion of these vulnerable workers. Stuck in the informal economy, they have no social rights, no social protection and benefit from a very limited access to the labor market. Some examples highlighted by the EFFE Lab shows that a better structuring of the home employment sector and the promotion of formal employment, through administrative simplification via declarative digital platforms, solvency of employers through tax credit schemes or tax deductions, offers effective and sustainable solutions. Furthermore, the professionalization of workers significantly improves the quality of the services offered and strengthens the attractiveness of the sector.
Migrants, especially women, are poorly integrated in European labor markets and, to a large extent, concentrated in sectors of the economy which are traditionally linked to unpaid reproductive, and hence unrecognized and undervalued work such as domestic work. Still, domestic work remains one of the main areas of employment available to women migrants. Health care, services to families and domestic work – these sectors are considered as an opportunity to integrate migrant women in the labor market by policy makers.
This is why projects supporting migrants’ and women’ professional and social integration as carers through professionalization while improving the quality of care delivered to older people, such as MiCare, supported by IPERIA, are essential.
To understand these issues, EFFE is very pleased to participate next Monday throughout the General delegate’s Aude Boisseuil presentation of the PHS sector, as well as President Marie Bétrice Levaux closing speech.
Register to the conference organized on June 19th in Paris by the project partners.
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A social Europe that works for every home