Contradictions and ambiguities during care work. "Case study of a Home- Care-Service in the province of Barcelona"

  • Mireia Roca Escoda Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/CRLA.56768
Keywords: ageing, care work, gender, Home-Care-Service, public policy.

Abstract

The care of the elderly people has stopped being an exclusively private matter, becoming a public question crossing different fields and involving different social agents. Through a qualitative research methodology, based on an ethnographic case-study, in-depth interviews have been made to paid professionals working in the care of the elderly (nurses of a home-care-service). This same methodology guided the participatory observation made during the professional praxis. In this article we analyse the model of public home-care-services for the elderly. A work that coexists with traditional ways (households, mainly women looking after elder family members), and where professionalization is not consolidated. In this context contradictions and ambiguities arise and call for the need of new debates on the social responsibility of the care of the elderly, as well as regarding the own characteristics of the activity when it is remunerated.

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How to Cite
Roca Escoda M. (2017). Contradictions and ambiguities during care work. "Case study of a Home- Care-Service in the province of Barcelona". Cuadernos de Relaciones Laborales, 35(2), 371-391. https://doi.org/10.5209/CRLA.56768
Issue
Vol. 35 No. 2 (2017): Monográfico: La cuestión social de la educación
Section
Miscelaneus

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