This text will be a useful resource for academics, practitioners and (postgraduate) students wishing to understand more fully the nature of the care workforce, how it is structured and the issues it faces both within particular European Union (EU) member states and across the EU generally. It is a comparative study of care work in Europe and, as such, presents the findings of a cross-national (Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK) and cross-sectoral (children, adults and older people) study of paid/formal care work by ‘front-line’ staff. Whilst having to deal with difficulties of definition, national contexts and particularities of these, the research essentially deals with what UK audiences would usually think of as ‘childcare’ and ‘social care’ but differentiated into three main groups: childcare and out-of-school care, child and youth residential and foster care, and domiciliary and residential care services for adults with disabilities, including frail older people.

The study presents findings from research funded by the EU as part of its framework Five Programme, which aimed to research the impact of EU policies, in this context in relation to the promotion of a knowledge-based economy in which 70% of the EU is employed, including 60% of women. Due to the traditional dominance of women in formal care work, these targets impact on the levels of employment in formal care work and vice versa. As Cameron and Moss highlight: ‘the EU sees care work not only as a precondition for increased employment, but also as a source of that employment’ (p. 4). As the EU has seen employment in the service sector increase by 19 million between 1980 and 1996, some of the largest increases have been in the care sector.

Having described the policy context across six EU countries, the text then goes on to analyse how the countries approach and structure care work. This is followed by an examination of a number of key issues related to care work, including gender and the workforce, problems of recruitment and retention within the workforce, the knowledge and training requirements of the workforce, and aspects related to good quality employment within care work – taking a case study approach using the example of care workers working with adults with disabilities. The text concludes with a consideration of possible future directions for the care workforce. The future possibilities considered include a generic professional care worker who works across the life course – something that probably runs counter to the UK situation where one has increased differentiation between children's care work and care work with adults as well as the continued distinction between care and education work in the UK.

An interesting aspect of the text includes the discussion of the role of the pedagogue, a key worker/role in Denmark: ‘Denmark is unique in the way a wide range of services for children, young people and adults share theory, practice and profession – pedagogy, pedagogical work, the pedagogue’ (pp. 140–1). Pedagogy is not, however, unique to Denmark, having a tradition across Europe (with 11 out of 15 member EU states having in 2001 some form of pedagogue operating in their country), though with different definitions and understandings within individual nations. Interestingly for a UK audience, Cameron and Moss argue that it is the UK and Hungary that showed the least signs of integration across the care occupations, whether that be across work with children (education and care), or integration between children's and adult care provision.

Another useful area of study is related to definitions of care. In Chapter 3 – ‘What is care work about?’ – the authors provide a succinct run through of various analyses and discourses of care. Useful definitions explored and presented in the text include care as: protection, supporting inclusion and autonomy, promoting family-like environments, and a commodity that can be bought and sold. These definitions are presented as overlapping, though it is argued that there is a shift in understanding (and perhaps in practice too) from care as protection to care as promoting autonomy and inclusion.

In terms of understanding and defining care workers, there is a useful presentation in the text of a variety of understandings of who the care worker is, whether in relation to children's or adult services that includes: childcare worker, pedagogue, professional – for example, teacher, nurse, therapist – and assistant to the pedagogue/teacher. Another useful observation is that there does seem to be the development of a new role from across the countries, that of the ‘personal assistant’, resulting from the commodification of care where those in receipt of care become employers.

Cameron and Moss also present a useful analysis of the levels of education and training that underpin care work in the six countries being studied. They present a three-tier typology based mainly on levels of education and training:

• • low tier includes those with little (level 2) or no education, such as domestic care workers and other care assistants;

• • medium tier includes those with education at upper secondary level (levels 3 and 4) who include day and residential care workers, such as children's or nursery nurses, nursing assistants and auxiliary nurses, nursery assistants, and social care workers in some of the countries; and

• • high tier which includes those with level 5/higher education qualifications, who are mainly teachers and pedagogues.

Overall, the book is also useful in that it provides details of the care workforce across the six countries that were researched – in terms of: the size of the care workforce, gender, age, ethnicity (briefly dealt with), employment conditions, and levels of earnings. In addition, an interesting, and in policy terms perhaps the most crucial, aspect of the research and analysis is in relation to the implications of demographic changes and changes to employment opportunities. It argues (pre-recession) that as the supply of (female) labour decreases and the demand for formal care increases, Europe is faced with significant labour shortages unless strong remedial action is taken. And, as it points out, labour shortages may occur even in times of unemployment. Indeed, in its conclusion, the text's final comments are that the EU's aspirations to become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy needs to be matched by equal ambitions for ‘social Europe’, which includes a recognition of the importance of care work and an ambition that care services are also the best in the world.

As mentioned at the beginning of the review, the text will be particularly useful to academics, practitioners and students wanting to explore the nature of the care workforce both within particular European Union (EU) member states and across the EU generally. However, the sections on the nature of care and levels of care workers are also helpful.