José Soeiro, Faculty of Arts, Institute of Sociology, University of Porto

Sara Canha, Centre for Research in Anthropology, University Institute of Lisbon

The increase in the number of people in situations of dependency, combined with a shortage of public responses, has led to a growth in the provision of private home care in different contexts. This market provision operates through various organisational intermediaries, often through informal and precarious arrangements, reproducing multiple inequalities and posing significant challenges to the rights of both workers and care recipients.

One aspect of this changing care landscape is the platformisation of care work. Digital labour platforms are emerging in different formats, playing an increasing role in the recruitment and organisation of care workers. At the same time, platforms for care workers to self-organise and exchange information are growing. These developments raise critical questions about the impact of digitalisation on care regimes, labour conditions, and the quality of care.

This panel aims to bring together papers that focus on these changing arrangements in the private home care sector. We encourage contributions that examine 1) how these intermediary institutions, plataformisation, and digitalisation affect the organisation of the home care market in different national contexts with various care regimes; 2) the effects of these changes on the quality of care, labour conditions, and the well-being of care recipients and 3) the challenges that these developments pose to social and human rights.

By addressing these issues, this panel seeks to foster a critical dialogue on the intersection of market changes, digitalisation processes and transforming care systems.