The limits of care. Organisation of the Household Assistance for the elderly in Madrid and Paris

This article analyses from a comparative perspective household care for the elderly in the capitals of Spain and France. Through a qualitative methodology combining interviews and participant observation, the article compares household care services and domestic work in both cities. The analysis shows how the moral, emotional and material dimensions are articulated in the performance of the work. This analysis contributes to the “denaturalization” of care work by showing that those jobs can be defined in multiple ways, implying very different limits in the definition of the tasks, qualifications, working times and labour relations