Care work. An approach from the Spanish nursing profession

Abstract

The Sociology conceptualizes care as a feminized activity that covers social needs and puts in a second place the analysis of care from the field of work. On the contrary, this paper is focused on the analysis of the work dimension of care in the Spanish nursing profession. We have studied how the Spanish nursing profession defined itself as a care profession forty years ago in order to create a specific area of competencies which was not to be subordinate to medical practice, while at the same time seeking to influence the development of new orientations and healthcare services. Nowadays, the educational improvement of all health workers and the standardisation of work processes allow that an increasing number of professional categories can take charge of different productive roles. This changes care work’s contents and actors, which has consequently created ambivalent disputes in the definition of competency maps for different health professionals.