Introduction

Despite recent changes, the familistic Mediterranean Italian welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1996; Ferrara, 1996) is still largely anchored in the male breadwinner/female carer family model (Lewis, 1992; Pfau-Effinger, 2005). According to this model and its cultural context, women are expected to have the main responsibility for carrying out homemaking and caring tasks, often on a full-time basis, and particularly in the Central-Southern regions. This explains why female labour force participation rates – as for older workers – are still very low in most Italian regions (although a trend towards higher participation rates can be observed in recent years), whereas the state's role is mainly that of providing not so much in-kind services, but rather care allowances (Bettio and Plantenga, 2004), financial support that is frequently used by households to privately hire migrant care workers (Di Rosa et al, 2012).

The limited extent of state-run or funded care services helps explain why voluntary work in Italy is concentrated in this field. On the whole, however, the voluntary sector in Italy appears to be underdeveloped when compared to other European countries, especially those in the North. This may be explained by the fact that, on the one hand, volunteering in Italy is not felt as a ‘social norm’ (Ascoli and Cnaan, 1997), while on the other, actual volunteering-like activities, particularly in the culture and recreation fields, may not be perceived as such in the eyes of many Italians. Indeed, the dominant profile of volunteering in Italy has often been described as mainly ‘altruistic’ and ‘service-oriented’ (ISTAT, 2006a; Fondazione Roma Terzo Settore, 2010). However, the amount of ‘self-expressive’ volunteering may be underestimated by some of the existing surveys, due to sample biases and cultural social norms, as this form of volunteering is, to some extent, not perceived as such by the common Italian mentality. As a consequence, only about 10 per cent of the population describes itself as being actively engaged in voluntary activities (ISTAT, 2011), which are performed in about 220,000 non-profit institutions, mainly registered as associations, 81 per cent of whose workforce is made of volunteers (ISTAT, 2001a). The total contribution produced by voluntary work has been estimated to reach 0.7 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product), while the whole non-profit sector adds up to over 4 per cent of GDP (CNEL-ISTAT, 2011).

Introduction

In this chapter we present the general conceptual and analytical framework adopted in this volume to explore the issues associated with volunteering in older age. The proposed framework, which draws on existing literature, represents an attempt to integrate the relevant dimensions identified in Chapter One and is used as a reference throughout the book. A starting point for our considerations is, as anticipated in the previous chapter, that voluntary work has lately gained in prominence and importance across the world. Since the United Nations (UN) declared 2001 the International Year of Volunteers, awareness campaigns encouraging voluntary work have primarily been addressed at the general public, while more recent attempts to encourage volunteering have targeted older adults. In Europe, older adults are increasingly considered to be a resource that can be drawn on by the voluntary sector, and the establishment of the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity in 2012, following the Year of Volunteering in 2011, clearly shows how efforts in this respect have been growing. Moreover, organisations such as the European Older People's Platform (AGE) have been promoting volunteering among older people as a tool to enable them to continue to participate in society and to better cope with daily life (AGE, 2007).

Volunteering has thus become a mantra for active and healthy ageing, although it is not always clear what it is all about. As anticipated in the previous chapter, basically, volunteering expresses itself as a relationship between two actors: a volunteer, who, as a provider gives his/her time freely to help or support others, and a client or recipient, who accepts the services provided by the volunteer (Haski-Leventhal et al, 2009, p 149). Accordingly, voluntary work may be defined as unpaid help or support given to another person who is not a member of one's family. This gift relation between the volunteer and recipient is freely chosen rather than being based on coercion, subordination or dominance, and both partners are expected to gain from the relationship. The recipient gets an unfulfilled need fulfilled, while the benefits from volunteering are numerous and include: strengthening of the social inclusion of the helper/provider, reduced loneliness and improved physical and psychological well-being (Wilson, 2000; Haski-Leventhal et al, 2009, p 140; Tang et al, 2010).

Introduction

As observed in Chapter One, ‘active ageing’ represents an overarching aim of current European Union (EU) policies. Defined as the process ‘of optimising opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age’ (WHO, 2002), it should be intended as an effort to maximise participation and well-being as people age, at the individual, organisational and societal level (Walker, 2002). According to this perspective, the current ageing of the European population can be seen in a positive way, since the capacity to perform activities at an advanced stage of age has sharply increased in recent years. A current 70-year-old or even an 80-year-old corresponds to a person 15 or 20 years younger living a century ago, and in this sense, European society is not actually ageing, but rather ‘rejuvenating’ (Giarini, 2009). In recent years, policy makers and the scientific community have increasingly recognised that, through active ageing, older people can greatly contribute to society, thus active ageing benefits society as well as older individuals in terms of better health and life satisfaction (Walker, 2011). This implies a striving to increase the participation of older people in a range of social activities within and outside the labour market. Volunteering is an important field in which active ageing can be realised, and several policy efforts in this direction have recently been undertaken by the EU, through activities planned within the European Year of Volunteering and the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity, in 2011 and 2012 respectively. But how can the formal volunteering of older people be enhanced in Europe, a rather variegated continent formed by the co-existence of different welfare regimes, with peculiar welfare mixes and legal frameworks? Although in the past a considerable number of studies have dealt with the issue of volunteering in older age (see, for example, Fischer and Schaffer, 1993; Morrow-Howell et al, 2001; Warburton and Cordingley, 2004), these studies have seldom offered a European comparative perspective on this issue, and analyses have hardly ever considered the micro, meso, macro and structural levels in a single study, with empirical evidence mainly lacking at the meso (or organisational) level.

Introduction

The increase in life expectancy is leading to growing numbers of frail older people worldwide, while the potential availability of family and informal care resources – especially from older people's children – is dramatically declining in Europe, due to lower fertility rates, rising labour market participation by women and higher shares of lone-elderly households (OECD, 2005a). Providing appropriate longterm care to large numbers of disabled, very old people therefore represents an increasing challenge to all welfare states, particularly in the light of the preference granted by official policies, in Europe as elsewhere, to arrangements promoting ‘ageing in place’, by enhancing tailor-made home and community care services, and moving away from institutional care (European Commission, 2008). A solution that is increasingly being adopted to tackle this challenge is based on the employment of migrant care workers, a discreet and to a large extent invisible trend that is giving rise to a sort of ‘ethnic segmentation’ of the elder care sector across Europe (Lamura, 2013). Italy is one of the countries where this phenomenon has become most widespread. Due to the overlapping of increased female employment, generous cash-for-care schemes and a still ‘familistic’ approach to elder care, in the last decade an increasing number of Italian families have indeed opted to privately employ a migrant care worker, often on a live-in basis, in order to provide support to their frail older family members. In this chapter, after a short introduction on the global and European situation, a more in-depth overview of the main trends currently affecting the demand and supply of elder care in Italy is provided, including an outline of the motivations driving Italian families to employ migrant care workers as well as of the difficulties experienced by migrant workers themselves. The conclusion analyses the opportunities and challenges for receiving as well as sending countries, in an attempt to set an, albeit provisional, agenda for future research, policy and practice in this still largely neglected area.

Migrant care work in ageing societies: the phenomenon in a global and Mediterranean perspective

One of the major concerns resulting from population ageing is that expenditure to provide ‘formal’ long-term care services (services that are delivered by public, profit or non-profit organisations to dependent, mainly older, people requiring continuous assistance) are expected to increase worldwide (Oliveira Martins and de la Maisonneuve, 2006)