Who Cares about Healthcare Workers? Care Extractivism and Care Struggles in Germany and India

This paper suggests the concept of care extractivism to explore strategies and mechanisms which pursue the persistent low social and monetary acknowledgement of healthcare work in Germany and India. Recently, caretakers and nurses in both countries went on strike, pointing to a crisis situation in social reproduction and various forms of care extraction. In Germany, care for the elderly and nursing in hospitals are marked by strategies of familialisation and voluntarisation, of standardisation and digital surveillance and by transnationalisation through the import of migrant workers. In India’s rural health provision, voluntarism subsidises welfarism; in private and public hospitals, hierarchisation and contractualisation of employment deepen care extraction. Stereotypes of nursing as natural female, caste norms and various stigmata reinforce the low valuation of care work. In both countries, neoliberal policies merge with patriarchal structures of social reproduction, intensify care extraction and create a cheap care work force which however is no longer docile.

Download Full-text

Keeping the Elderly Alive: Global Entanglements and Embodied Practices in Long-Term Care in Southeast Italy

Anthropology & Aging ◽

10.5195/aa.2019.202 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 77-93 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Gabriela Nicolescu

Keyword(s):

Social Reproduction ◽

The Elderly ◽

Care Work ◽

Term Care ◽

Care For The Elderly ◽

Care Workers ◽

Migrant Work ◽

The Family ◽

Centered Care

This article explores the success of the “migrant in the family” model of care for the elderly in southeast Italy and the mechanisms that bond the caregivers and their patients in a mutual dependency. I describe this model as a meeting place between endurance and vulnerability, and between the fragility of the elderly and the fragility of most of the women who work as migrant care workers. I argue that migrant live-in care work for the elderly is a combination of attentive practice and detachment in completion to the current description of care work as ritual and as tinkering and adaptation. In a broader perspective, the article shows that the economic needs in poorer regions of the world manifest in the commitment and determination to keep the elderly alive in Italy. This article reports findings from long-term ethnographic research among 34 migrant domestic care workers and 24 Italian employers in a medium-sized town in Italy. The article illustrates the findings by means of three case studies and engages with the existing literature on person-centered care in patients with dementia, biopolitics, and the global political economy of migration for work in the field of care. Migrant work for the elderly is crucial for a general understanding of social reproduction in Italy and in many other global contexts.

Download Full-text

State responsibility in caring for elderly people

International Journal of Growth and Development ◽

10.25081/ijgd.2017.v1i1.24 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 23

Author(s):

Nahid Ferdousi

Keyword(s):

Elderly People ◽

Resource Constraints ◽

Senior Citizens ◽

Human Life ◽

Elderly Care ◽

The Elderly ◽

Public Hospitals ◽

Legal Rights ◽

Care Providers ◽

Private And Public

Elderly is an obvious reality and last stage of human life cycle. In practice, most of the elderly people in our country suffer from some basic human problems, such as poor financial support, absence of proper health and medicine facilities, family negligence, deprivation, and socioeconomic insecurity. Moreover, there are no separate facilities for the old people in public transports, at ticket counters, banks and hospitals etc. In both private and public hospitals, there are no separate geriatrics departments for elderly care. It is the responsibility of the society to give these elderly people priorities in getting all civic services, including hospitals, banks, offices and courts. In Bangladesh, there are resource constraints, capacity problems, infrastructural weaknesses, education deficiencies, and poor attitudes and expectations in relation to caring for elderly people. Elderly people mostly suffer from some physical illness and they need comprehensive medical care services. Provision of health care for elderly people at various sites such as hospitals, nursing homes, old age homes and other places of shelter should be within the umbrella of legislative protection of rights and effective legal redress mechanism should be in place to guard against violations of rights. It is an ethical and moral responsibility to extend best care towards senior citizens so that they can pass their ending days of life with respect, proper care, and security. There is need to establish standards for service care providers, including in-home, community-based and residential settings. Every social policy should include a policy of active aging for elderly population. In addition, concerned personnel should assist the senior citizens so that they can enjoy their legal rights properly.

Download Full-text

ASEAN Migrants: A Boon for Taiwan’s Aging Populace

Journal of ASEAN Studies ◽

10.21512/jas.v1i2.68 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 161

Author(s):

Hong-Ming Huang ◽

Jenn-Jaw Soong

Keyword(s):

Migrant Workers ◽

Work Performance ◽

Relevant Literature ◽

Elderly Person ◽

The Elderly ◽

Southeast Asian ◽

Labor Rights ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Care For The Elderly ◽

The Government

Taiwan is home to a rapidly growing aging population as life expectancy rates increase and birth rates go down in this island. The government of Taiwan opted to bring in migrant workers to care for the elderly following a shortage in adequate domestic manpower who were willing to take on the positions of caregivers for the elderly. In time, eldercare in Taiwan switched hands: from the actual families of the elderly to migrant workers coming in from across the Southeast Asian region. Questions have arisen in light of this development. Is the government policy that allows for Southeast Asian migrants to care for the elderly in Taiwan a good one, or a bad one? Who benefits most from this deal: the elderly, their families or the migrant care workers? Is providing care for the elderly in their own homes by just one caregiver the only option? And can such a policy help both ends: the elderly person who requires safer care, and the migrant care worker whose labor rights require full protection? This paper, drafted out following the review of relevant literature and the conducting of interviews by Hong-Ming Huang and Jenn-Jaw Soon, analyzes the political-economic aspects of this policy and offers certain recommendations and conclusions. One conclusion is the fact that Southeast Asian workers take better care of the elderly in Taiwan when eldercare is provided through institutions, rather than if the care was provided by just one foreign caregiver engaged directly by families of the elderly. The positive effects of ‘institution-style’ workers are reflected in the work performance, life quality and management as well as labor rights protection.

Download Full-text

Aging And Health In South Dakota: Who Will Provide Care?

Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER) ◽

10.19030/jber.v4i10.2699 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 4 (10) ◽

Author(s):

Diane K. Duin ◽

DeVee Dykstra

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

South Dakota ◽

Health Care Professionals ◽

Work Force ◽

The Elderly ◽

The United States ◽

Working Population ◽

Care Needs ◽

Care For The Elderly ◽

United States Economy

Demographers have long been writing of an aging population.  The forthcoming demographic changes predicted include the doubling of the elderly in selected states between 1995 and 2025, and the possibility that the numbers of people over age 85 is expected to reach at least 27 million by 2050.  These changes in the population will have a major impact on many sectors of the United States economy, including health care.  The effect on health care will include changes in technology to provide needed services to the elderly, access to medications by the elderly, overall service provision to the elderly by health care organizations, as well as reimbursement for services to the elderly.  The most dramatic affect on health care is still a couple of decades away.  As a result of the demographic trends there will be an insufficient supply of health care workers, while at the same time an increase in the health care needs of the elderly.  In South Dakota the working population, those 16 to 64 years of age, is experiencing significant changes.  The 16 to 44 year old segment of the population has declined by 10.4%.  The 45 to 64 year old segment has increased by 23.5%.  These changes in the South Dakota demographics indicate that the working population is aging, while the numbers of individuals available to replace them in the work force (the replacement group) is declining.   The data provides an indication that there will be more elderly consuming greater amounts of health care resources and fewer health care professionals, specifically nurses, in South Dakota to provide health care for the elderly.

Download Full-text

中国家庭护理工作的现状及其对非正规经济的启示

Rural China ◽

10.1163/22136746-01401003 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 42-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Keyword(s):

Informal Economy ◽

Service Sector ◽

Family Members ◽

The Elderly ◽

Care Work ◽

Migrant Women ◽

Care For The Elderly ◽

Urban Migrants ◽

Potential Migrant ◽

Direct Use

China’s expanding workforce of rural–urban migrants is increasingly involved in care work while simultaneously facing issues of care within its own ranks for its family members. The work examined here concerns care—for the elderly and ill, for children, and in everyday domestic labor. This form of work is widely performed predominantly by migrant women in (usually) urban households in circumstances lacking labor protections. They are performing work that creates value and that constitutes a key service sector of the informal economy. Much the same population provides similar care work for family members of their own (usually) in the countryside, work that also creates value but is normally unremunerated. Rural migrant and potential migrant women may be in complex social positions where their work is needed in both circumstances, and are in both circumstances providing value for their families—through income earned and through work of direct use value. The work in both instances is socially structured through being in or outside the informal economy and in or outside ties of kinship. This article argues for an expanded and adequately gendered concept of the informal economy based on value and Maussian concepts of human economy. 中国日益增加着由乡村进入城市的大量投入到保姆工作中的劳动力，与其同时也面临着她们对其自身家庭成员的照料问题。本文关切的是家庭护理问题，这里指的是对老人，病患，孩子的照料，以及日常家务劳动。这种工作主要是由农村妇女来到通常是城市的家庭中，在缺少正规劳动保护的环境中工作。她们劳动创造的价值构成了非正规经济服务职能中的一个核心部分。这群打工族大多来自农村，并在其自身家庭中承担着同样的照料工作。然而这种同样创造着价值的工作一般并没有得到补偿。来自乡村的打工族及潜在的妇女民工可能处于一种复杂的社会地位中，她们的工作在这两种社会环境中都迫切需要，并都为她们的家庭或通过所挣工资，或通过直接使用其劳动创造着价值。这两种工作情况——在非正规经济之中或其外，以及在亲属关系之中或其外，都是社会构成的。本文提出一种基于价值观与人类学马塞尔莫斯学派的人性经济概念, 并进一步将其扩展并充分性别化的非正规经济。 (This article is in English.)

Download Full-text

The Promise of Decent Care and the Problem of Poor Working Conditions. Double Movements Around Live-In Care In Austria

sozialpolitik ch ◽

10.18753/2297-8224-160 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Brigitte Aulenbacher ◽

Michael Leiblfinger ◽

Veronika Prieler

Keyword(s):

Working Conditions ◽

The Elderly ◽

Care Work ◽

Care Provision ◽

Decent Work ◽

Care For The Elderly ◽

Organization Of Care ◽

Double Movement ◽

Market Driven ◽

Provision Of Care

Over the last decades, the marketization of live-in care for the elderly in Austria has been accompanied by new forms of regulation and the contestation surrounding this type of care provision. The article analyzes this process as a Polanyian double movement – the movement of a market-driven provision of care and organization of care work, and countermovements seeking protection from its effects – and asks to what extent the provision of decent care and decent work are affected. Drawing on policy and media analyses as well as interviews with representatives of brokering agencies and other stakeholders in the field, we show how live-in care is embedded in the Austrian care regime, how its marketization entails contradictions between decent care and poor working conditions and how care disputes and attempts to regulate the model have emerged.

Download Full-text