Narratives on Working Hours: An Analysis of "Pioneer" Brokering Agencies for Live-in Care Work in Germany

In the "gray market" for live-in care work in Germany, brokering agencies are playing an increasingly important role in shaping working conditions. Drawing on six expert interviews with "pioneer" brokering agencies, this article centers on these agencies' narratives on working hours. The analysis reveals that these agencies' understanding of working hours is contradictory: working hours are either referred to as a fixed, intersubjectively measurable category or as a subjective phenomenon, leaving scope for divergent opinions. These perspectives are evident in the assumption of an (in)separability of working and leisure time, and in the understanding of leisure time as a personal need or a valid demand. In this context, constructing working hours as a subjective category thus functions as a legitimation narrative for extensive working hours. These findings are connected to the contradictory interpellations of live-in care workers, such as "fictive kin" and "manager of the self", and to the underlying understandings of work.