During the last decade the theoretical concept ’global care chains' has had a pivotal influence in the growing feminist studies of migration and care, and is defined by poor women migrating to the U.S. or Europe to work as care workers for families while they leave their own children to other family members or local paid women. Global care chains theory is embedded in a sociological tradition and could benefit from a more sufficient theorisation of the role of the state. Building upon feminist theory this paper seeks to improve our understanding of how the state regulates both migrants’ care employment and their opportunities to give transnational care towards their family members.
The aim of the paper is to revise the concepts of gender, migration and care regimes by bringing in the multi-level governance concept in order to investigate the complexities of how the state regulates global care chains in EU-member states that also involve the supranational level. Perceiving the state as a dynamic and changeable construction the paper also discusses tensions and limitations between: the care, migration and gender policy regimes, and the two levels of supranational and national.
