Bulgarian Migrant Women and their Life Courses. The Case of Care Workers from Bulgaria to Italy and Greece
Bulgarian Migrant Women and their Life Courses. The Case of Care Workers from Bulgaria to Italy and Greece

Summary/Abstract: After the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the migration of women from this region has sharply increased. In particular, a number of women (mainly middle-aged mothers with teenage children) from the Lovech district of northern Bulgaria have travelled to Italy and Greece in order to work as live-in caregivers or domestic helpers. Drawing on long-standing fieldwork in Bulgaria and on short-term fieldwork in Italy, this study examines the impact of migration on Bulgarian women and their life courses. Based on the interviews with women from two Bulgarian villages, the most important reason for their migration was that it was “for their children”. The idea that mothers must make money, as part of their role in the household, may represent the continuation of the socialist worker-mother ideology. At the same time, these migrant mothers were expected to be caregivers in their own homes, despite the fact that they were working abroad. Although the women’s migration may not have had a significant impact on changing gender roles in Bulgaria, working abroad enabled these “single” women (in this case, divorced or widowed) to live independently, while providing financial support to their children. The implication of this finding is that migration may create new possibilities for women’s life courses to be “single” in Bulgarian villages.

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