Who Takes Care of the Children? Albanian Migrant Parents’ Strategies for Combining Work and Childcare in Greece

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the strategies Albanian migrant parents in Greece employ to reconcile their work and childcare responsibilities. The institutional context, the informal work setting, and the agency of the migrants all play crucial roles in their childcare arrangements. This research draws on 36 biographical interviews conducted during 2014–2016 with parents in Greece. Our findings suggest that migrants use different coping strategies to manage their work and care responsibilities. These strategies include mother-centred strategies or mothers making career sacrifices to meet their care responsibilities, shared parenting, relying on extended family and friends, delegating care to older children, leaving children to care for themselves, taking children to work, and transnational care practices. This study shows how care arrangement options were constrained and continuously shaped by migration, care, gender, and labour regimes.