Članek / Care Extractivism Beyond Households: Migration and Care for Older People in the Post-Yugoslav Semi-Periphery

A new thematic issue of Social Inclusion, Transnational Organization of Labour, Mobility, and Senior Care in Central and Eastern Europe (2026, Vol. 14), has been published, focusing on the transnational organisation of care labour, mobility, and senior care in Central and Eastern Europe. Until recently, long-term care remained a largely politically neglected issue across the region, with both responsibility for care and its costs predominantly relegated to families. The contributions to the thematic issue show that, particularly in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, senior care has begun, albeit slowly and unevenly, to gain greater political recognition. This shift is taking place against the backdrop of population ageing, persistent labour shortages, and the increasing transnationalisation of care work, raising fundamental questions about who bears the responsibility and costs of providing care.

The thematic issue also addresses an important gap in research on care and migration, which has predominantly focused on the mobility of care workers from Eastern European countries towards Western European care regimes. As the introductory article demonstrates, Central and Eastern Europe is not simply a source of migrant care labour for wealthier Western European countries, but is itself embedded in complex and unequal transnational flows of labour, mobility, and care. The contributions examine mobility within, from, and towards the region and its implications for the organisation of senior care, care gaps, and social inequalities. They explore changing relations between paid and unpaid care work, the marketisation and professionalisation of care, the role of intermediaries and civil society actors, and the precarious conditions under which care is provided. Taken together, they ask how transnational labour mobility is reshaping care systems and what forms of inequality it produces or intensifies.

The thematic issue also includes an article by Peace Institute researcher Majda Hrženjak, Care Extractivism Beyond Households: Migration and Care for Older People in the Post-Yugoslav Semi-Periphery. The article shifts the analytical focus from migrant care work in private households to its growing role in residential care for older people. Focusing on Slovenia and the migration of care workers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, it deployes the concept of care extractivism to examine how labour shortages in Slovenia’s residential care intersect with unequal transnational regimes of mobility, labour, and social reproduction. The analysis identifies the mechanisms through which migration regimes, labour market segmentation, and welfare arrangements enable the extraction of migrant care workers’ labour, time, skills, and affective capacities.

Complete thematic issue | Introductory article | Article by Majda Hrženjak