The purpose of this book is to explore the emergence and development of home elder-care assistance in Italy, an arrangement whereby short-term and long-term care services for the elderly are bought as private and individualised assistance, sometimes with the help of cash provisions of the state. While exploring this topic, the author examines the role that different social actors, including the state, Italian families and the workers themselves, play in shaping this organisation of care. The intended purpose of the book is thoroughly met. Moreover, this is original work because it focuses on home elder-care as an occupation of its own, although it may include elements of domestic work, and it does so through a qualitative approach that highlights the lived experience of workers as they interact with the elders and their relatives, and the Italian state.

In the first chapter, the author explores how a progressively ageing global population and a significant extension of the lifespan in the countries of the northern hemisphere, along with demographic changes such as increased female labour market participation, shifts in family structure and a restructuring of the welfare state, are generating an ‘eldercare crisis’ (p. 13), where there is a pressing need for services, thus potentially leaving many societies with a ‘care deficit’ (p. xv). Chapter 2 discusses the central role that immigrant and migrant female workers hold in providing elder-care services in the northern hemisphere. It describes the growing role of female immigrant and migrant labour in the provision of home elder-care assistance, and explores how different actors, at the global, national (both sending and destination countries) and regional levels, participate in generating and sustaining this role for both immigrant and migrant female carers.

In the following two chapters, which explore home elder-care work, the focus is on Italy. Chapter 3 explains what renders the case of Italy particularly relevant: not only does its population remain one of the oldest in the world, but there is an increased need for care and support which, due to economic, demographic, political and social transformations, Italian families are no longer able to provide for their elders. In Chapter 4, the rationale and the processes through which Italian families are transformed into employers of home elder-care assistants are investigated.

In Chapter 5, the author argues that immigrant and migrant women from various backgrounds do not necessarily fit the mould of the ‘ideal home elder-care assistant’, but are transformed into it through several processes that unfold through daily discourse and practices at the global–local and private–public levels.

The next two chapters draw on rich interview excerpts to highlight the routines of home elder-care assistants through their narrated lived experience, and the challenges and rewards embedded in this work. The analysis shows powerfully how emotions are a central component of home elder-care assistance as, on the one hand, there are intimate interactions between the workers and the elders for whom they care and, on the other hand, there are more formal relationships between the workers and the family members who hire them. This section is completed by an exploration of the role that emotions play in defining the boundaries of these triangular relationships of labour. The concluding chapter summarises the themes analysed throughout the book, distils what the findings highlight and discusses what needs to be done so that both home elder-care assistants and the elders have a dignified experience and a more equitable redistribution of care is gradually realised. The strengths of this book lie in the multi-level approach to care, which allows the reader to see clearly the interlinked processes at the global, state and family levels shaping the design and provision of elder-care. In addition, in the thorough discussion of all the developments related to welfare, care and migration, there is an important critical analysis which highlights that these developments are not neutral but gendered, racialised and classed, and thus that different axes of inequality are embedded in care arrangements. The book could benefit from analysing the very interesting finding that although all the workers believed that in various ways their work was not adequately recognised by their employers, they nevertheless were not willing to achieve their goals through unity. Although there is some discussion of incidents where the workers show individual agency, understanding the lack of collective agency and empowering action would be insightful. This publication will be relevant to audiences involved in academia and policy, as the analysis provides insight on what a new more equitable way to think about ageing and the growing need for long-term care should look like well beyond Italy. The book will also be valuable for wider audiences: the author points out that ‘eldercare is necessary work … home eldercare assistance is something that belongs to all of us’ (p. 144); and indeed, ageing and decline, care and dignity are relevant topics to all people who, either as carers themselves or as employers, are responsible for caring for an elder and/or see in this process their own journey.