Table 1.
Summary of articles included in this review.
| Study | Design | Field of Journal | Country Focus | Sample | Study Aim |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ayalon et al., 2015 [63] | Qualitative | Health Services Research and Policy | Israel | 17 CRs 1, 16 family members 2, 20 MCWs 3 and 20 nurses | Understand the role of live-in MCWs in providing social care to patients in hospitals |
| Fusco et al., 2015 [49] | Quantitative | Geriatrics and Gerontology | Italy | 506 CRs | Determine the impact of how being assisted by MCWs affects rehospitalization rates |
| Green and Ayalon, 2015 [64] | Quantitative | Gerontology | Israel | 338 MCWs, 224 CRs, and 442 family members | Examine the extent to which people in need of support, family members, and MCWs are familiar with the rights of live-in MCWs |
| Mazuz, 2015 [65] | Qualitative | Global Health | Israel | 1 triad (CR, family member, and MCW) | To analyze the use of somatic care practices by live-in MCWs |
| Meyer, 2015 [50] | Qualitative | Anthropology | Italy | MCWs—does not specify how many | Examine how MCWs negotiate their work lives |
| Ayalon and Roziner, 2016 [66] | Quantitative | Ageing Mental Health | Israel | 23 triads (MCWs, CRs and family members) | Evaluate the satisfaction of relationships between people in need of support, their family members, and home care workers |
| Barbabella et al., 2016 [29] | Quantitative | Gerontology | Italy | 438 CRs–primary family caregiver dyads | Investigate the socio-economic predictors of hiring MCWs |
| Boccagni, 2016 [51] | Qualitative | Social Politics | Italy | 30 MCWs | To explore women MCWs mediation between different forms of well-being and to understand how these dimensions are understood, experienced and/or displaced while abroad |
| Green and Ayalon, 2016 [39] | Quantitative | Interpersonal Violence | Israel | 187 MCWs | Explore help-seeking behaviours among MCWs who have experienced work-related abuse |
| Kemp and Kfir, 2016 [23] | Qualitative | Social Problems | Israel | 15 NGO 4 staff members | Explain how civil society actors have mediated between the bio-political contradiction that MCWs are wanted workers but as unwanted mothers |
| Baldassar, Ferrero and Portis, 2017 [53] | Qualitative | Global Studies in Culture and Power | Italy | 8 MCWs and 10 CRs and family members | Explain how kinning processes between MCWs and people in need of support develops |
| Cordini and Ranci, 2017 [52] | Qualitative | Social Policy | Italy | Content analysis of the public discourse in newspapers | Provide evidence on how market dynamics have allowed governments to shift the responsibility of providing home care to MCWs |
| Palumbo, 2017 [37] | Qualitative | Immigrant and Refugee studies | Italy | 3 MCWs, 4 judicial and law enforcement authorities, 3 lawyers, 4 policymakers, 4 government representatives, 5 representatives of NGOs, 3 social workers, 2 trade unionists and 2 experts | Analysis of why exploitation in the domestic work sector is rarely acknowledged or addressed with polices around trafficking and exploitation |
| Rugolotto, Laroto, and van der Geest, 2017 [38] | Qualitative | Migration, Health and Social Care | Italy | 20 MCWs, and 5 family members | Describe how migration affects the care being provided to people in need of support |
| Scrinzi, 2017 [54] | Qualitative | Western European Politics | Italy | 20 party members of a political party | Examine the relationship between anti-immigration politics and the racialized and gendered division of care work |
| Boccagni, 2018 [55] | Qualitative | Housing Studies | Italy | 165 MCWs | Analyze how live-in MCWs feel in their everyday lives abroad |
| Bonatti and Muniandy, 2018 [56] | Qualitative | Migration Studies | Italy and Malaysia | 16 MCWs in Italy and 15 MCWs in Malaysia | Explain how migrant women develop and pursue their aspirations by examining the institutional limitations they face |
| Cherubini, Geymonat, and Marchetti, 2018 [57] | Qualitative | Participation and Conflict | Italy, Colombia, the Philippines, and Taiwan | Policy analysis of laws | Show how the ILO Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189) has been incorporated or resisted in local contexts |
| Green and Ayalon, 2018 [48] | Quantitative | Health Policy Research | Israel | 338 MCWs and 185 Israeli care workers | Assess the working conditions and prevalence of abuse and exploitation faced by live-in MCWs and live-out local care workers |
| Nicolescu, 2018 [58] | Qualitative | East Central Europe | Italy | 34 MCWs | Discuss how migrating to work in the care sectors is a transborder continuity of autonomy and employment practices that survive socialism |
| Bronstein, 2019 [67] | Qualitative | Documentation | Israel | 20 MCWs | Examine the life stories of MCWs by analyzing different aspects of information behaviour that has emerged from their narratives through a transnational perspective |
| Brown, 2019 [45] | Qualitative | Feminist theory | Israel/Palestine | 15 employers of MCWs 5 | Examine the politics of the MCW–employer relationship as it unfolds within the Jewish-Israeli home |
| Cohen-Mansfield, 2019 [68] | Mixed methods—qualitative and qualitative | Gerontology | Israel | 111 family members, 61 CRs, and 98 MCWs | Describe the social engagement care provided by live-in MCWs for frail older adults in comparison with the wishes of people in need of support and their families’ wishes for this care |
| Golan and Babis, 2019 [69] | Qualitative | Information, Communication and Society | Israel | 800 Facebook posts | Explain how social networking site expressions shape an occupational community of temporary migrant workers |
| Ranci and Arlotti, 2019 [60] | Mixed methods—qualitative and qualitative | Policy and Society | Italy | 60 key informants and INPS 6 data | Show how non-take up rates of health services can be explained by individually situated decisions taken by beneficiaries based on cost-benefit evaluations that are rooted in social attitudes shaped by existing institutional contexts |
| Nicolescu, 2019 [61] | Qualitative | Anthropology and Aging | Italy | 34 MCWS and 24 employers of MCWs | Explore the success of the migrant in the family model and the mechanisms that bond MCWs and people in need of support in a mutual dependency |
| Solari, 2019 [59] | Qualitative | Sociology | Italy | 61 MCWs and 39 adult children whose parent(s) were abroad | Uncover the meanings that MCWs and their non-migrant children assign to monetary and social remittances |
| Shinan-Altman and Ayalon, 2019 [70] | Quantitative | Ageing Mental Health | Israel | 338 MCWs and 185 Israeli care workers | Examine the perceived control among live-in MCWs and live-out local care workers and identify the factors that contribute to this perceived control |
| Scrinzi, 2019 [44] | Qualitative | Immigrant and Refugee Studies | Italy | 10 managers of the social cooperatives | Examine how strategies adopted by managers at social cooperatives challenge dominated gendered constructs of care work |
| Teshuva et al., 2019 [71] | Mixed methods—qualitative and qualitative | Ageing and Society | Israel | 116 MCWs and 73 CRs | Explore the quality and the nature of relationships between live-in MCWs and people in need of support |
| Vianello, Finotelli and Brey, 2019 [62] | Qualitative | Ethnic and Migration Studies | Italy and Spain | 10 MCWs in Italy and 10 MCWs in Spain | Investigate the process of residence permit renewals among migrants |
| Casanova, Tur-Sinai and Lamura, 2020 [34] | Qualitative | Ageing and Social Policy | Italy and Israel | Long-term care experts—12 in Israel, 27 in Italy | Identify the challenges and responses that have been adopted or should be adopted to improve long- term care provision in Italy and Israel |
| Holler, 2020 [72] | Qualitative | Social Policy and Administration | Israel | 30 CRs | Examine the lived experience of people claiming disability benefits |
1 People in need of support, 2 Family members of people in need of support, 3 Migrant care workers, 4 Non-Governmental Organization, 5 Includes people in need of support and/or their family members, 6 National Institute for Social Security.