The (un)making of Dutch ‘care girls: An ethnographic study on aspirations, internship experiences and labour market perspectives

In this study, we focus on the role of Dutch Level 2 senior vocational training in care work in relation to the prospects and options it provides for students who follow this programme. Similar to the ‘care girls’ from previous studies our participants are young women from lower-class backgrounds who aspire to various jobs in the care sector, but are steered away from their original aspirations by their vocational training programme. The major difference between this research and previous studies is that we examine the Dutch institutional and broader structural context of care work. In the Netherlands, there is a lack of job opportunities for Level 2 graduates. This enables us to study the impact of limited job opportunities in the making of ‘care girls’. We explore whether this situation results in the reproduction of inequalities (and if so, how), or whether it represents a window of opportunity through which these girls can escape from their initial cycle of disadvantage if their goal of becoming a ‘care girl’ does not materialise.