The ‘good agency’? On the interplay of formalization and informality in the contested marketization of live-in care in Austria

The Austrian self-employment model of live-in care work is considered to be a forerunner of legal and affordable senior home care. Established as a widely accepted pillar of the care regime, it is nevertheless contested. From a Polanyian, Foucauldian and neo-institutionalist perspective, the article investigates the role of the so called ‘good agencies’ and how they lobby for the model by formalizing care provision without being in charge of the informally negotiated poor working conditions. Analysing the Austrian national quality seal, the care services, and the management of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the chapter shows how brokering agencies’ activities render the gap between the increasingly formalized commodification of care and ongoing informality of care work visible. This leads to
countermovements, not least those demanding the establishment of an employment model so as to restrict the neoliberal self-employment-based governance.