Abstract:  High‐income countries are using migrant care workers to address deficiencies in domestic care, thereby creating new care gaps in their countries of origin. Apart from this, care workers often face challenging working conditions in many countries. This article examines the job profile, needs, and training preferences of migrant live‐in care workers in Austria to inform improvements to their working and living conditions. As part of a transdisciplinary project, an online survey was co‐designed with live‐in care workers and CSOs working with care workers. The survey covered four languages (Slovak, Romanian, Bulgarian, and German). Themes included job profile, training requirements, problems encountered, well‐being, health, work breaks, and social contact in Austria. Descriptive analysis was applied using key figures, including mean values and frequency distributions. The results were interpreted by the project team. Two hundred and twenty‐five live‐in care workers completed the survey. The study found that live‐in carers perform numerous additional tasks, some of which make them feel uncomfortable. Some live‐in carers reported experiencing sexual harassment and physical violence, as well as a deterioration in their physical and mental health, since starting work as a live‐in carer. Participants expressed substantial interest in training opportunities, particularly those dealing with difficult situations in the household. There is great potential to improve conditions for live‐in care workers in Austria by providing services in their native languages. This would benefit both live‐in care workers and care recipients and their families. The expectations regarding what live‐in carers are and are not allowed to do should be communicated much more clearly to clients and their families. Furthermore, dependency on brokering agencies could be reduced by introducing a public health official responsible for administering live‐in arrangements as part of official home care in Austria.

Keywords:  care crisis; communication; community care; family carers; home care; long‐term care; migration

Published:   3 June 2026

Issue:   Vol 14 (2026): Transnational Organization of Labour, Mobility, and Senior Care in Central and Eastern Europe (In Progress)