Migration and the care needs of an aging population in many industrialised countries are both highly topical policy areas. This book synthesises an interest in both areas by exploring the role that migrants play within the care industry in both Norway and the UK. It provides valuable insights into the diverse backgrounds, motivations and future plans of care workers and advances understanding of the interaction between the ‘agency’ of care workers and the structural factors that impact on their work. The authors employ a lifecourse approach that challenges stereotypical views of migrants as victims and illustrates how individuals' previous experiences contribute to the decision to take up employment as care workers. This approach illuminates the influence of multiple factors on the pathways of care workers and advances understanding of patterns of migration, migrants, the changing role of gender in care work, the social mobility of care workers, their attempts to negotiate cultural differences and the diversity of caring relationships. The book also critically examines the extent to which the increasing social care policy emphasis on encouraging older and disabled people to take responsibility for their own care is adequately supported by developing a skilled care workforce, including through regulation and migration policy.

These are ambitious concerns to address within the structure of eight chapters, but the chapters are accessible and can be independently read. The first chapter contextualises migrants within care work, providing the reader with an excellent introduction to the book's central concerns and concepts. In the second chapter, a detailed account of the largely qualitative methods employed in carrying out the study that the book draws on is presented, particularly the challenges of recruiting the sample for the study in both countries (amounting to twenty in Norway and thirty one in the UK). Chapters three to seven explore the theoretical implications of the empirical study, supported by references to interview material. The last chapter pulls the main themes of the book together, and concludes that more attention needs to be paid to strengthening what the authors refer to as ‘the global cross of independence’, that is, the relationship between diverse migrant care workers' efforts to self-determine their individual life projects and the efforts of older and disabled people to pursue independent lives. The chapter argues that there is an urgent need for the shortage of labour in the care industry to be addressed, including through recognition in migration policy of the role that migrant workers currently play within the care sector and through greater regulation of the workforce.

Overall, these arguments are convincingly supported through analysis of interview data within the context of the two welfare systems of Norway and the UK. The authors reveal a continuous process of decision-making among migrant care workers. At several points, reference is made to previous experiences and future plans in individuals' countries of origin, or in other countries, thus indicating the transnational nature of their career and life trajectories. As the authors rightly point out, these insights seriously challenge theories which emphasise processes of assimilation in the host country as well as stereotypical accounts of migrants as passive victims within a global labour market. Additionally, the comparative nature of the study allows the authors to demonstrate the relevance of their theoretical contributions to more than one welfare system, which is also a welcome contribution.

However, in the authors' attempts to strongly argue the case for the agency of care workers, less attention appears to have been paid to the wider structural factors that contribute to the low-paid, low status nature of care work and the difficulties of progressing from such work within the host country. While opportunities for horizontal progression are considered and supported by empirical data, the possibilities for vertical career progression within the care sector in Norway or the UK are not. It may well be the case that there are universal barriers to progression for all care workers, regardless of their migration status. Despite this, it is likely that there are more serious challenges to career progression for migrants engaged in this work, notably the lack of recognition of qualifications gained overseas, a longstanding barrier which is identified by the authors, and which extends beyond the care industry. This would suggest that migrant care workers' ‘search for new horizons’ – the subtitle of the book – is quite severely constrained, with serious implications for the development of a skilled workforce in the social care sector and the personalisation agenda for older and disabled people. There are also occasional lapses in language. For instance, a number of references are made to ‘inhuman’ (sic) values without further explanation or illustration. Despite these shortcomings, the book makes a timely and valuable empirically grounded contribution to the study of migration and to care work.