Doctoral Dissertation Research: International Labor Migration and Health Care Disparities: Eldercare in Genoa, Italy

肯塔基大学博士生帕蒂·迈耶在玛丽·K·安格林博士的指导下，将调查在意大利热那亚老年客户家中工作的南美移民女性护理员的医疗保健策略。在全球北方的许多城市，老年人护理是一个严重的问题，那里的人口老龄化，而家庭规模正在减少，作为传统照顾者的女性寻求家庭以外的工作。移徙工人在家照顾老年人只是当代跨国移徙及其与作为可销售商品的保健和家庭护理增长的联系的一个例子。这位研究人员选择热那亚作为研究这一现象的合适地点，因为热那亚是欧洲80岁以上成年人比例最高的国家。此前的研究重点是移民劳动力对移民来源国和目的地国经济的影响。这个项目正在研究对护理员本身的影响。特别是，这项研究将解决看护工作对照顾者自身心理和身体健康的影响。本研究将利用与护理人员的半结构化访谈、对为护理人员提供服务的专业人员的半结构化访谈、长期参与者观察以及意大利移民和劳动力市场的档案数据来：1)产生关于移民护理人员的健康担忧和医疗资源利用的经验数据；2)调查跨国移民在非正式工作环境中的健康担忧、生活/工作条件和医疗资源利用之间的关系。本研究具有重要意义，因为它将以一种新的方式将医学人类学和劳动理论结合在一起，这将增加对移民和全球化的个人层面后果的理论理解。这项研究还将为有关照顾老年人和照顾他们的人的政策提供信息。为这个项目提供资金支持一名社会科学家的教育。

University of Kentucky doctoral student Patti Meyer, supervised by Dr. Mary K. Anglin, will investigate the healthcare strategies of South American female migrant careworkers laboring in the homes of elderly clients in Genoa, Italy. Elder care is an acute concern in many cities across the Global North, where the population is aging while family size is decreasing and women, who are the traditional caregivers, pursue work outside the household. Carework of elders in their homes by migrant workers is but one example of contemporary transnational migration and its linkages with the growth of health and family care as marketable commodities. The researcher has chosen Genoa as an appropriate site to investigate this phenomenon because Genoa has the largest percentage of adults over 80 in Europe.Previous research has focused on the effects of migrant labor on the economies of the countries from which they come and to which they go. This project is looking at the effects on the careworkers themselves. In particular, the research will address the consequences of carework on the careworkers' own mental and physical health. This researcher will use data from semi-structured interviews with careworkers, semi-structured interviews with professionals who provide services to the careworkers, long-term participant observation, and archival data on migrants and labor markets in Italy to: 1) produce empirical data on health concerns of and healthcare resource use by migrant careworkers; and 2) investigate the relationships between health concerns, living/working conditions, and healthcare resource use of transnational migrants in informal work settings.This research is important because it will bring together medical anthropology and labor theory in a new way, which will increase theoretical understanding of the individual-level consequences of migration and globalization. The research also will inform policy regarding the care of elders and those who care for them. Funding this project supports the education of a social scientist.