In most societies, responsibility for care—of children, the elderly, and those living with chronic illness or disability—has traditionally been assigned to women. Today, however, the gendered division of labor is being reordered worldwide. Since the 1990s, women’s shift into paid labor in countries around the globe has strained their capacity to care for their families. The “care deicits” produced by this shift present a challenge to individuals seeking to reconcile work and family, as well as to national policymakers who must balance demands for care with those for equal opportunity for women, and for the full development and utilization of human capital. This issue also has a marked transnational dimension, as “global care chains” increasingly draw women from poorer nations to take up paid care work positions in richer ones, producing not just care deicits but “care drains” from sending countries. Over the past decade or so, care deicits have become markedly visible in the United States, where female labor force participation has been high (nearly 60 percent) and the demand for care is on the rise due to the aging of the baby boomer generation. Now shouldering responsibility for the care of elders as well as children, many wage-earning women are forced to look outside their families for help. The U.S. government, long a laggard in terms of welfare provision, has little to offer in the way of public care, but commercial and even non-proit services are often prohibitively expensive. As a result, families are increasingly turning to the UNITED STATES STUDIES Women, Migration and the Work of Care: The United States in Comparative Perspective SUMMER 2011 OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES Introduction Sonya Michel Introduction Sonya Michel Bringing Care Workers to Canada: Canada’s Migration Policies Monica Boyd Circular Migrant Domestic and Care Workers in Germany and Austria Helma Lutz Transnational Care, Local Inequalities: Care in an Urban Poor Community in Mexico Leticia Robles-Silva Caregivers in a Binational Context: The U.S. - Mexico Case Xóchitl Castañeda and Magdalena Ruiz Ruelas The Legal Context for Caregiver Immigration Muzaffar Chishti A Temporary Care Work Program for the United States? The Political Context Margie McHugh 1 5 11 15 19 21 24