Caring on the Clock
The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2249067 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michelle Addison (0000-0002-8017-8188, Newcastle University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 488-489 |
| Publication date | 2017-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9566.12357 |
| OpenAlex | W1862981193 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
This edited collection, focusing predominantly on an American economic and social context, presents a comprehensive insight into the everyday practices of - and challenges for - people working in the area of paid care work. The book is split into six different sections: ‘Paid Care Work’; ‘Contexts of Care’; ‘Hazards of Care’; ‘Identities and Meaning-Making’; ‘Work and Family’, and; ‘Paths to Change’. All of the authors in this book make important observations about the care sector, especially how the caring profession continues to be undervalued and underpaid in wider society. Duffy, Armenia, and Stacey identify this - at the beginning of the book - as partly due to the naturalisation of care to women which makes care, as a skill, invisible and so both undervalued and poorly remunerated. These issues are also explored alongside the intersection of class and race by both Showers (chapter 12) and Macdonald (chapter 13). Whilst the foundations of this collection are rooted in familiar arguments made by Hochschild and Acker, Duffy et al. successfully bring these debates up to date and cite further empirical evidence to show that things remain unequal within paid care work. The editors state from the outset that the intention of bringing together these 23 contributions in one collection is to inform how policy is developed and implemented to improve standards not only for employees in this sector but also those who are recipients of this care. As Armenia states, their aim is to close the gap on ‘inadequacy’ (p. 225) and encourage better working conditions for workers and greater recognition for the range of skills that are deployed. This is something that I think most of the authors do achieve. For instance, ‘Paths to Change’ within paid care work are discussed in detail in section 6, whereby earlier discussions within the book about different care roles are consolidated and brought to bear on the debate around the exploitation of workers within the care sector. What emerged as important to me was the need to properly formalise and professionalise the roles within the care sector so that workers are properly recognised and remunerated for the valuable work they do. As someone who enjoys learning about workplace practices, this edited collection offers a detailed insight into the daily lives of those working within the care sector including the likes of nurses, social care practitioners, nannies, day care professionals, and hospice workers, and how these people construct workplace identities. I particularly enjoyed section 4 which presents discussions around performance, boundary work, ‘ethnic logics’ and emotion management. This section poses the idea that who you are as a person matters as to which job people are located in within the care sector. Macdonald's contribution (chapter 13) - namely on middle-class women's employment of certain nannies based on a value/less judgement inscribed onto embodied aspects of class and ethnicity - is a truly excellent empirical study which shows how personhood matters in a working environment. This finding is particularly interesting and important when considering the inherent inequalities regarding race, class and gender that are embedded within the care setting, and set against the usual expectation that it is skills and experience which secure employment. Whilst this collection certainly offers a lot of nuanced discussion to the reader, it has a very specific focus on paid care work and inequalities therein, and so leaves out a discussion pertaining to the complexities of unpaid care work. The authors acknowledge this as intentional so that the collection might be considered apart from the ‘sometimes idealised view of unpaid family care’ (p. 6). This is reasonable, and the authors sufficiently discuss how they frame ‘care’ work. However, I would have appreciated a stronger engagement with arguments relating to the conceptualisation of paid and unpaid aspects of work - as forwarded by the likes of Bolton and Glucksmann - to help the reader further grasp the reasoning behind the focus on paid work in this collection. In sum, this book will be a useful asset to any undergraduate course focusing on the care setting, whilst academics, policy-makers and professionals involved in care work will also profit from the up-to-date and original empirical research, particularly for its recommendations towards improvements within the paid care sector. One caveat to this is that the focus is on American service providers and developed infrastructures, meaning that this collection does not speak to those working in countries with more challenging care organisations and arrangements. Nevertheless, this is a valuable contribution to the field of care that is clear, concise, and very accessible
Care work · Citizenship · Context (archaeology · Meaning (existential · Naturalisation · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Work (physics · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Engineering · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,57 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2023 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |