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

肯塔基州大学博士生帕蒂·迈耶，由玛丽·K博士指导。安格林将调查在意大利热那亚老年客户家中工作的南美女性移民护理人员的医疗保健策略。老年人护理是全球北方许多城市的一个严重问题，这些城市的人口正在老龄化，而家庭规模正在减少，传统的照顾者妇女在家庭之外寻求工作。 移徙工人在家中照顾老人的工作只是当代跨国移徙及其与保健和家庭护理作为可销售商品的增长联系的一个例子。 研究人员选择热那亚作为调查这一现象的合适地点，是因为热那亚是欧洲80岁以上的成年人比例最高的地方。以往的研究主要集中在移民劳动力对他们来自的国家和他们去的国家的经济的影响。该项目正在研究对护理人员本身的影响。特别是，这项研究将解决护理工作对护理人员自身身心健康的影响。本研究将使用半结构式访谈资料、半结构式访谈专业人员、长期参与者观察、以及意大利移民与劳动力市场的档案资料，以：1）产生关于移民照顾者健康问题与医疗资源使用的经验资料;调查健康问题、生活/工作条件这项研究很重要，因为它将把医学人类学和劳动理论结合在一起，这是一种新的方式，将增加对移徙和全球化对个人影响的理论理解。 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。资助这个项目支持社会科学家的教育。

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.