Long-term care, markets, and inequalities. Intermediary agencies, digital platforms, and worker cooperatives- CAREMARKETS 

Reference: PID2024-155905OB-I00

Funding Entity: Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento 2024. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

Duration:  01-09-2025 – 31-08-2028

Amount: 67.125 €

Principal Investigator: Martínez Buján, R. (UDC)

Participating members of the ESOMI: Laura Suárez, Andrea Souto, Antía Eijo, Noelia Teijeiro, Raúl Rey

Link to the call: https://www.aei.gob.es/sites/default/files/convocatory_info/file/2025-07/PID2024-PRP-Texto%2BAnexo-Firmada.pdf

Project summary:

In Spain, the provision of long-term care in homes is undergoing a new phase of commercialisation characterised by the rise of new options in the marketing of domestic work. Among these, the most notable for their influence on the market are intermediary and care agencies, digital platforms and non-profit worker cooperatives. This research project aims to generate scientific knowledge about these market dynamics, the economic and political processes that have encouraged their deployment, the business models under which they operate, their potential impact on the reconfiguration of work in the sector, and the cultural values that underpin their business activity. Using a methodology that combines quantitative and qualitative analysis from a participatory approach with key actors and incorporating a gender and intersectional perspective, it analyses how, in Spain, the provision of long-term care in the home has become a contested territory due to the coexistence of these disparate market patterns. It starts from a dual objective in relation to their recent expansion. Firstly, it explores the potential interrelationship between its recent boom and public social programmes aimed at meeting care needs in the home. Secondly, through a comparative analysis of its activity, it studies the extent to which new labour patterns are being created in the sector that are moving towards hybrid formal/informal work processes and in what sense the labour skills that define the professionalisation of this activity are being reconfigured.