Screenshot from telex.hu

Due to demographic ageing in the EU, pressure on the elderly care sector is rising and the increased need for health care and long-term care is becoming a pressing problem. It’s also creating a flow of labour from East to West.  The booming market is also creating space for unregulated, unreported employment in wealthier countries such as Austria and Germany. These migrant care workers are mainly women informally hired by private households, without access to social protection and basic labour rights.

The situation in Hungary is unique: many nurses come here from further easterly countries, mostly from Romania (Transylvania), while many women from poor rural areas in Hungary go to Western Europe in search for work, leaving their own families behind.

Photos by János Bődey, Telex.hu

NewsSpectrum Fellow Kata Kádár, formerly at Transindex, teamed up with Telex.hu editors, photographes, and reporters to find and share personal stories of these women. They travelled to different settlements (Sic/Szék, Cluj County Șărmășag/Sarmaság, Sălaj County Comandău/ Komandó, Covasna County) where labor migration, including care-based migration, is quite a common phenomenon.

Photos by Tamás Márkos, Transindex.ro/Telex.hu:

This cross-border cooperation resulted in a comprehensive, detailed longform multimedia story published in both media.

Published stories