Dreaming circularity? : Eastern European women and job-sharing in paid home care

Abstract

Circularity seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue and, inter- estingly, eastern European care workers and Italian employers are starting to depict this arrangement as their “ideal.” Yet these ide- alized descriptions still raise a number of questions. Throughout this article, the narratives from eastern European “circular-carers” and those of Italian employers illustrate the way commodification of care, transformation of gender roles in post-Soviet countries, and the precarization of women’s labor (especially for breadwinners age 50 and older) influence individual desires and decisions and, thus, promote the spread of this migratory pattern.