Poland's demand for home-based care is due to a limited provision of institutionalised public and private care services. In large urban centres, such as Warsaw, cleaning services are also sought after. Ukrainian migrant women have learned that the Polish domestic work sector, with its need for care workers and cleaners, provides opportunities to earn sufficient wages to be able to support their families in Ukraine. However, work in the domestic work sector exposes the migrant women to particular risks. On the one hand, the risks result from the character of domestic work: it is undeclared, unstable, related to low social status and yields insecure income. On the other hand, the risks taken by domestic workers depend to a large extent on the attitude of the informal employer. To gain insight into the Ukrainian women's opportunities to respond to risk present in their relationships with informal Polish employers, I use the notions of patron-client relationship (Tarkowski 1994) and everyday forms of resistance (Scott 1985, 1990).

The patron-client relationship is an asymmetrical relationship characterised by a domination-subordination division (Tarkowski 1994: 45). In the case of migrants, this is especially visible when analysing those with an irregular legal status. Such a relationship is generally voluntary, with both engaged parties expecting gains from the exchange of goods and services. The individuals involved have access to different and unequal types of resources, a result of their positioning at different levels of the societal hierarchy (Tarkowski 1994: 47). This exchange differs from an economic exchange because there is no equivalence. When one side does a favour for the other, that party has a right to expect reciprocity in the future, though the character of reciprocity may not be determined; there are no formal rules or legal guarantees. The reciprocity norm defines the rules of behaviour. Thus, it is not about the obligation to repay a debt, but about ‘being grateful’ (Tarkowski 1994: 48). The exchange, based on the interest of both sides, ought to be hidden; instead, it takes the form of a favour. The actual underlying aim and function of offering a gift has to be concealed.