Völlig legal!? Rechtliche Rahmung und Legalitätsnarrative in der 24h-Betreuung in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz

Within the last decade, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have witnessed the formation of transnational markets with a growing number of agencies brokering care workers from Central and Eastern European countries for around-the-clock elderly care. However, the current model of 24-hour care remains contested. Agencies are accused of acting in dishonest and exploitative ways; the sector’s (non-)regulation has been the subject of public debates. Our paper uses regime and website analyses to examine how placement agencies legitimize their services. Adopting both transnational and comparative perspectives, we analyze the agencies’ legality narratives and link them to the existing regulations. We argue that the notion of legality obscures precarious working conditions and power structures and downplays this precarity by making it the problem of a few dishonest agencies.