scholarly journals Gender, Elder Care and Care Workers in Thai Governmental Home for the Aged

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 254-263
Author(s):  
Boontarika Narknisorn
Keyword(s):  
Older Persons ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Formal Care ◽  
Work Condition ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Male Care ◽  
More Care ◽  
Thai Government

Thai government discouraged formal care. Research on care workers and care work in Thai governmental homes for the aged was limited and unvoiced. This research aimed to investigate gender, elder care and care workers in Thai governmental home for the aged by exploring (1.) gender and care workers, (2.) how elder care was performed, (3.) care workers’ work condition and (4.) care workers’ work satisfaction. Qualitative research was employed to understand care workers’ perspectives. Research techniques were observation, focus group interview and in-depth interview with all care workers in one Thai governmental home for the aged and interview with key informants. Identifying themes and content analysis was applied. The results showed that there were more female than male care workers. Care work was socially constructed to women’s roles. There was an awareness to include both genders in care work, especially demanding for same sex of care workers and older persons for personal care. Since there were high numbers of older persons, care work demanded work that is more physical. Care work was not a professional work and attracted more women who were unemployed or had low level of education. Care work was linked to unpaid or low paid work. Since Thai government discouraged formal care, more care workers experienced poor work condition and dissatisfaction due to double disadvantages of under valuation of care work and formal care. There were more dissatisfied care workers who expressed poor working condition as no advancement, inadequate salary and benefits, poor coordination among departments, conflicts among coworkers, which affected personal goals, family life and health of care workers. However, satisfied care workers expressed mental and spiritual fulfillment as love, care, attachment, life meaning and morality that could overcome negative aspects of care work. Research, policy, practical implications and recommendations were to create more awareness of gender and care work that links to care workers’ work condition and satisfaction in formal care in Thailand.

Formal and informal long term care work: policy conflict in a liberal welfare state

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 134-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Murphy ◽  
Thomas Turner
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Informal Care ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Formal Care ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Informal Carers

Purpose The undervaluing of care work, whether conducted informally or formally, has long been subject to debate. While much discussion, and indeed reform has centred on childcare, there is a growing need, particularly in countries with ageing populations, to examine how long-term care (LTC) work is valued. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the way in which employment policies (female labour market participation, retirement age, and precarious work) and social policies (care entitlements and benefits/leave for carers) affect both informal carers and formal care workers in a liberal welfare state with a rapidly ageing population. Design/methodology/approach Drawing the adult worker model the authors use the existing literature on ageing care and employment to examine the approach of a liberal welfare state to care work focusing on both supports for informal carers and job quality in the formal care sector. Findings The research suggests that employment policies advocating increased labour participation, delaying retirement and treating informal care as a form of welfare are at odds with LTC strategies which encourage informal care. Furthermore, the latter policy acts to devalue formal care roles in an economic sense and potentially discourages workers from entering the formal care sector. Originality/value To date research investigating the interplay between employment and LTC policies has focused on either informal or formal care workers. In combining both aspects, we view informal and formal care workers as complementary, interdependent agents in the care process. This underlines the need to develop social policy regarding care and employment which encompasses the needs of each group concurrently.

Ageing/body/sex/work – Migrant women’s narratives of intimacy and ageing in commercial sex and elder care work

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072094459
Author(s):  
Lena Näre ◽  
Anastasia Diatlova
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Observation Data ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Women's Narratives ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ageing Body

This article analyses how sex and elder-care workers negotiate intimacy and ageing in their work. We find surprising similarities between sex and care work that derive from the ways in which Eastern European migrant women are sexualised in the sites of our studies: Italy and Finland. The bodywork and intimate labour conducted by the women is defined in part by the social status of their work in society, in part by the ageing bodies upon whom the work is done, and in part by the ways in which the bodies of the workers are gendered, sexualised and racialised. The article draws on interview and participant observation data collected during two ethnographic research projects with female migrants from post-socialist countries working as eldercare workers in Italy and in sex workers in Finland.

scholarly journals FROM BEING ACTIVATED TO SELF-ORGANIZATION IN ELDER CARE: CONCEPTS OF AGING AND THEIR IMPACT ON RESIDENTS’ AGENCY

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S506-S506
Author(s):  
Irene Strasser ◽  
Ines Hopfgartner ◽  
Carmen Payer
Keyword(s):  
Elder Care ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Multiple Stressors ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Care Facility ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Daily Routines ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract In a research project together with an elder care facility in Austria, we were following a participatory approach to investigate important factors and processes to increase quality of life for residents with dementia. The aim was to better understand how we can foster participation, agency and freedom of choice within a care setting. Together with care workers, residents and relatives we were working on how to identify overall strategies and aims, as well as particular processes and procedures that allow for a higher involvement of all these groups of individuals. Doing research explicitly together with care workers we also aimed to trigger reflection of individual and organizational concepts of aging. We interviewed residents, relatives and care workers, conducted research workshops, and engaged in participant observation. In the talk the focus will be on care workers’ perspectives. We wanted to better understand the multiple stressors within daily routines in care work. Particularly, we wanted to find out more about the multifaceted processes of integrating one’s experiences into everyday care work, and integrating care work into one’s life story, to make meaning of the important work they are providing under constantly stressful working conditions. Finally, together with care workers, we developed a model for participation, that is explaining a wide range of residents’ possibilities for involvement: From activity orientation to actual participation and the realization of individually meaningful activities. What helps to initialize participation, and what we identified as obstacles in supporting residents’ autonomy will also be discussed in the talk.

scholarly journals Positive Turn in Elder-Care Workers’ Views Toward Telecare Robots

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuuli Turja ◽  
Sakari Taipale ◽  
Marketta Niemelä ◽  
Tomi Oinas
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
Personal Values ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Standards Of Care ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Analysis Phase ◽  
Care Robots ◽  
Care Workers

AbstractRobots have been slowly but steadily introduced to welfare sectors. Our previous observations based on a large-scale survey study on Finnish elder-care workers in 2016 showed that while robots were perceived to be useful in certain telecare tasks, using robots may also prove to be incompatible with the care workers’ personal values. The current study presents the second wave of the survey data from 2020, with the same respondents (N = 190), and shows how these views have changed for the positive, including higher expectations of telecare robotization and decreased concerns over care robots’ compatibility with personal values. In a longitudinal analysis (Phase 1), the positive change in views toward telecare robots was found to be influenced by the care robots’ higher value compatibility. In an additional cross-sectional analysis (Phase 2), focusing on the factors underlying personal values, care robots’ value compatibility was associated with social norms toward care robots, the threat of technological unemployment, and COVID-19 stress. The significance of social norms in robot acceptance came down to more universal ethical standards of care work rather than shared norms in the workplace. COVID-19 stress did not explain the temporal changes in views about robot use in care but had a role in assessments of the compatibility between personal values and care robot use. In conclusion, for care workers to see potential in care robots, the new technology must support ethical standards of care work, such as respectfulness, compassion, and trustworthiness of the nurse–patient interaction. In robotizing care work, personal values are significant predictors of the task values.

scholarly journals Sensor-floors: Changing Work and Values in Care for Frail Older Persons

2020 ◽  
pp. 016224392091195
Author(s):  
Sidsel Lond Grosen ◽  
Agnete Meldgaard Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Older Persons ◽  
Care Center ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
Daily Care ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Frail Older Persons ◽  
Care Practices

Based on an ethnographic study in a Danish residential care center, this article shows how the interplay of a sensor-floor technology and currently influential values of person-centeredness, privacy, and security in care transforms care work and care interactions between residents and care workers. Based on an understanding of care as realized in a heterogeneous collective of human and nonhuman actors, this article illustrates how new modes of monitoring and interpreting residents’ care needs at a distance arise, and how a new organization of work focusing on quick and responsive care is established. These new care practices lead to conflicts between the values of privacy and security, to ambivalent experiences among care workers of simultaneously increased security and insecurity in work, and, paradoxically, also often to a decentering rather than person-centering of care. Instead of accommodating simultaneous compliance to the values of privacy, security, and person-centeredness, the use of the sensor-floors makes the tensions between these values continuously and loudly present in daily care practices.

Academic Labor: Who Cares?

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen M. Cardozo
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Disparate Impact ◽  
Contingent Labor ◽  
Tenure System ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Academic Labor ◽  
Diversity Issues ◽  
Labor Issues ◽  
Predominantly Female

This article analyzes the neoliberal turn to contingent labor in academe, specifically the development of a ‘teaching-only’ sector, through the lens of feminist, interdisciplinary and intersectional studies of care work. Integrating discourses on faculty contingency and diversity with care scholarship reveals that the construction of a casualized and predominantly female teaching class in higher education follows longstanding patterns of devaluing socially reproductive work under capitalism. The devaluation of care may also have a disparate impact on the advancement of women within the tenure system. In short, academic labor issues are also diversity issues. To re-value those who care, intersectional alliances must be forged not only between faculty sectors, but also among faculty, care workers in other industries, and members of society who benefit from caring labor.

Care-Arbeit und Care-Berufe

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. 452-458
Author(s):  
Martin Werding
Keyword(s):  
Wage Gap ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Charitable Organizations ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Private Households ◽  
A Value ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Professional Care

Abstract Care work can be provided in various forms and in differing institutional settings, ranging from private households over social networks and charitable organizations to public or private entities employing professional care persons. All these forms of care work create a value-added, but are subject to very different economic conditions. Focusing on professional care and building on German micro-data, the article shows preliminary evidence that there might be a »care wage-gap«, i.e., a systematic disadvantage of care workers compared to other professions in terms of their remuneration. It points out how this presumption could be thoroughly scrutinized and suggests possible reasons - among other things, the existence of informal care - that could be tested in subsequent steps.

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