Young Spanish au pairs in London: migration and gender tensions in the context of intra-EU mobilities

Abstract

This article explores the study of young Spanish au pairs in London within the context of intra-European migration following the 2008 financial crisis from an ethnographic, feminist and gender perspective. It contributes to a greater understanding of the ways in which the free movement of workers in the EU and the commodification of care work are linked to emerging dynamics of European (re)peripheralisation and the production of new forms of precarity. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2015 and 2017, it shows how the ambiguous, transient nature of the “au pair” category forces young female migrants to constantly renegotiate gender norms. Their experiences are shaped by gender norms that draw on the sexual division of labour to naturalize caregiving and by gender imaginaries of equal opportunities that challenge the gender order, as gender tensions intersect with the production of new forms of precarity that increase deregulation and heighten vulnerability.