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The purpose of this paper is to describe how migration affects the care of older people in Italy.

The paper is based on anthropological fieldwork by one of the authors. This consisted of in-depth interviews with 20 “badanti” (migrant caregivers), with relatives of older people and with social workers in the city of Verona, Italy. It further included extensive study of secondary materials on the topic of migrant care of older people.

Badanti, Italian families and older people find themselves locked in an uneasy contract: badanti because they are exploited and often unable to find better, formal employment; Italian families because they are aware that they fail to render their moral duty to their aged parents and grandparents; and older people because they feel neglected and maltreated by their children. Yet the three parties also rely on each other to make the best of a precarious situation. The relationship between badanti and Italian elderly highlights the contradictions within Italian politics on care and migration. This case study shows how migrants help Italian families to hold on to the tradition of family care for ageing parents.

The small sample of badanti and families provides a detailed and profound insight of the complexity of elder care in Italy but does not allow generalisation for developments in the country as a whole.

Policy makers should take notice of the indispensability of informal migrant care in present day Italy.

The originality of the paper lies in the in-depth conversations with badanti and in the way in which elderly care is contextualised in the Italian tradition of care and present day politics.

In rural Malawi, money constantly circulates. As soon as villagers, poor as they are, get some money in hands, it is swiftly spent. Tracking how money – and other valued items like food and soap – are pushed and pulled around through an extremely poor community offers profound insights into women’s everyday survival tactics. Central to these women’s survival is the ability to mobilise support in times of need. Material wealth is found to be both a prerequisite and a threat to this ability. It can best be spent quickly, in particular ways, so as to transform it into potential sources of future support in times of need. Maximizing access to potential future support while minimizing blockage – by always appearing able to reciprocate and not giving others socially acceptable justifications to withhold support – are concerns that to a great extent shape the village women’s everyday decision-making. Understanding the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that both result from and trigger these survival tactics is important for social scientists and policy-makers as these have far-reaching consequences, including women’s HIV risk-taking, which are difficult to explain from other vantage points.