Abstract
Embeddedness theory highlights how individuals remain connected to work, organisations, and communities, yet existing frameworks often assume conventional workplaces with stable organisational boundaries and accessible forms of social integration. These assumptions do not hold in live‑in care, where work occurs inside private households, employment arrangements are fragmented, and organisational support is often minimal or remote. Using a qualitative study design, this study reframes embeddedness as occupationally structured, comprising three interrelated layers—relational embeddedness, social/network embeddedness, and institutional embeddedness. Drawing on a four‑week diary study with 29 live‑in caregivers and 27 follow‑up interviews across Germany and the UK, we theorise how these layers form, interact, and become strained under conditions of continuous proximity, emotional intensity, and institutional dependency. Relational embeddedness reflects ambivalent attachments shaped by asymmetric relationships with clients and host families; social/network embeddedness emerges through fragile, dispersed support structures that workers assemble to counter household isolation; and institutional embeddedness reflects how migration regimes, labour regulations, and agency practices structure autonomy, mobility, and access to resources. We show that these layers dynamically reinforce or undermine one another, generating distinct embeddedness pathways across national contexts. This multi-layer model advances embeddedness theory by grounding it in the labour process and institutional arrangements of household‑based work and enriches HRM scholarship by illustrating how employment systems beyond conventional organisations shape integration, wellbeing, and retention in transnational care labour.