Finding dignity in dirty work

The Constraints and Rewards of Low-Wage Home Care Labour

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2265735
AutoresClare L Stacey (0000-0001-8763-2956, University of California, San Francisco, autor correspondente)
Ano2005
Volume27
Fascículo6
Páginas831-854
Data de publicação2005-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00476.x
PMID16283901
OpenAlexW2091105978
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas131
Referências citadas32

The ageing of the population in the US and elsewhere raises important questions about who will provide long-term care for elderly and disabled people. Current projections indicate that home care workers - most of whom are unskilled, untrained and underpaid - will increasingly absorb responsibility for care. While research to date confirms the demanding aspects of the work and the need for improved working conditions, little is known about how home care workers themselves experience and negotiate their labour on a daily basis. This paper attempts to address this gap by examining how home care workers assign meaning to their 'dirty work'. Qualitative interviews suggest that home care workers have a conflicted, often contradictory, relationship to their labour. Workers identify constraints that compromise their ability to do a good job or to experience their work as meaningful, but they also report several rewards that come from caring for dependent adults. I suggest workers draw dignity from these rewards, especially workers who enter home care after fleeing an alienating service job, within or outside the healthcare industry

Business · Care work · Compromise · Dignity · Economic growth · Economics · Health care · Labour economics · Meaning (existential · Negotiation · Political science · Population · Population ageing · Public relations · Qualitative research · Sociology · Work (physics · Emotional Labor in Professions · Employment and Welfare Studies · Law · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Work-Family Balance Challenges