European Union economic policy on social reproduction: Differentiating between Central-Eastern Europe and the West

Abstract

The economic policies of the European Union can deepen the crisis of social reproduction in its member states by impacting the availability of (paid) public or market-based services of childcare, healthcare, long-term care and domestic work and the (unpaid) reproductive labour provided by individuals. Western European Union member states increasingly address the crisis of social reproduction by outsourcing the provision of reproductive labour to migrant workers, often from countries in Central-Eastern Europe, many of which in turn suffer from reproductive labour shortages caused by emigration. In this context, it is pertinent to assess to what extent European Union economic policy recognises the existence of crises of social reproduction in its member states and if the solutions proposed to address these differ for Western and Central-Eastern Europe countries. This article achieves this through a critical frame analysis of European Union economic policy documents issued between 2011 and 2023 to four countries selected due to their position in the reproductive labour migration chain: Belgium and Austria (as examples of destination countries which rely on Central-Eastern Europe labour migrants for care and domestic work), Poland (as example of both an origin and destination country), and Slovakia (as an example of an origin country).