Care work in Europe: Current understandings and future directions

1
Care work in Europe Current understandings and
future directions

• Peter Moss
• Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of
  Education
• University of London

2
The Study

• EC funded (Framework 5)
• 2001 - 2005
• 6 Partners Denmark, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain,
  Sweden and UK
• Main objective
• To contribute to the development of good quality
  employment in care work in services that are
  responsive to needs of changing societies

3
Specific aims

• What is care work? Analyse and compare
  understandings of care work across different
  types of care work and different countries
• How is care work structured? Identify
  different approaches to and models of care work
• Why is care work womens work? Examine the
  causes and consequences of the gendered nature of
  the care workforce
• What directions to take? Identify conditions
  necessary for the development of good quality
  employment in care work

4
Why is care work important?

• As a potential source of good quality employment
• As a condition for reconciliation of work and
  family life ??increased employment
• gender equality
• As the main determinant of quality of care
  services?good quality of life for Europes
  citizens

5
Changing context

• Changing values choice, flexibility,
  decentralisation, privatisation, rights,
  participation
• Changing images e.g. the child as active
  subject and citizen
• Changing demands increasing demand for paid care
  work, increasing recognition that care work is
  complex and demanding

6
Changing context

• Changing supply care work unpaid and paid
  dependent on women working in poor conditions and
  subsidizing costs but this traditional supply
  is decreasing.
• The problematique in this changing context, is
  the current system sustainable? desirable?

7
Three stage study

• Mapping the care workforce surveying use and
  demand for care services reviewing literature on
  quality, job satisfaction and gender issues
• Three cross-national case studies of work
• with young children (HU, DK, SP)
• with older people (SW, ENG, SP HU)
• with adults with severe disabilities (DK, NE,
  SW)
• Development of video-based method for
  cross-national study of practice in care work
  (SOPHOS)
• 3. Innovative practice (36 examples)
  dissemination
• All reports at www.ioe.ac.uk/tcru/carework.htm

8
Focus of study

• Childcare and out-of-school services
• Child and youth residential and foster care
• Care for adults with disabilities, including
  eldercare
• paid front line care work but recognise
  importance of relationship with unpaid work

9
Border crossing

• Cross national
• Cross-sectoral from 0 to 100
• Differences and common ground
• Policy and practice, structures and
  understandings
• Multi-method (secondary analysis of
  LFS?video-based study of practice?in-depth
  interviews)

10
Main findingsWhat is care work?

• Care work is a problematic term and concept,
  and can be an integral part of a wider field
  (such as education or pedagogy). Where it exists
  as a separate field, it is often weakly
  conceptualised.

11
Main findingsWhat is care work?

• Concept often unclear, e.g. many have difficulty
  defining social care?
• Border between care and other fields is
  blurring, e.g.
• Children (child)care into education, e.g. Spain
  moving from childcare to education for young
  children (guarderia gt escuela infantile)
• Elderly people (elder)care into health and
  housing

12
Main findingsWhat is care work?

• Care not understood as a distinct field of
  policy, practice or employment, e.g.
• Denmark, care as inseparable part of pedagogy,
  holistic approach to working with peoplenot
  care work but pedagogical work, not care
  workers but pedagogues
• pedagogy important theory, practice and
  profession in Continental Europebut almost
  unknown in English-language world

13
Main findingsHow is care work structured?

• The workforce is three tiered and highly
  gendered, though with considerable cross-sectoral
  and cross-national differences in size and
  quality of employment

14
Three tier workforce

• High (tertiary level education)
• Mainly work with children and young people only
  small groups (except Denmark) work with adults.
  Include teachers and (social) pedagogues
• Medium (upper secondary education)
• Mainly work with adults (e.g. auxiliary nurse in
  Sweden), but also childcare workers
  (e.g.nursery workers in Hungary, UK)
• Low (secondary education)
• Home-based workers some assistants. Include
  family day care, home carers, personal assistants

15
Profile of the workforce

• Highly gendered ( women highest with children
  and elderly)
• Mostly 25-44 (like total workforce) - many have
  own care responsibilities but no information
• Often (not always) low paid
• Mostly specialist
• Career prospects usually limited vertically and
  horizontally

16
Cross-sectoral/nationaldifferences

• Highest level in work with childrenlowest in
  work with elderly people
• Highest level overall in Denmark, then SwedenUK
  at lower end
• Largest workforce in Denmark (10) and Sweden
  (9) Netherlands and UK (7-9, but high part
  time) Hungary and Spain (lt5, but low part
  time)

17
Danish pedagogue

• High level of education
• Less gendered 25 male in some services
• Better pay (and other conditions)
• Generalist - work with people from 0 to 100
  main worker with children, young people and
  younger adults
• Broad career prospects - vertical and horizontal

18
Main findingsWhy is care work womens work?

• NOT poor pay
• BUT understandings of the work as essentially
  female, replicating the gendered nature of care
  work in the home
• AND gendering of the workforce is reproduced in
  training and employment practices (which presume
  female students and workers).

19
Main findingsCommon requirements and competencies

• There are strong commonalities in work across
  different sectors whether with children, young
  people or adults, it is becoming more complex and
  demanding and requires many common competencies.

20
Commonalities in care work

• Fulfilling fundamental physiological needs and
  needs for protection
• Supporting development and/or autonomy
• Relating communication, listening, empathy
• Supporting the integrative relationship between
  the individual, family and friends and wider
  communities
• Networking (with family, community) and
  teamworking (with other workers and services)
• Working with diversity.
• Renewing knowledge

21
Common competencies

• Communicative (many languages, listen)
• Reflective and analytic make contextualised
  judgements
• Understanding and valuing learning as lifelong
  process
• Personal competencies/experiences the ability
  to connect the personal professional
• Working between theory and practice
• Working with complexity, diversity, change
• Teamworking and networking
• Musical and aesthetic

22
Main findingsQuality of employment

• Much care work has features of poor quality
  employment (e.g.pay and other employment
  conditions, levels of education). But reported
  job satisfaction is high, and much care work has
  features of good quality employment (e.g. job
  autonomy). The social status of the work,
  however, is perceived by workers to be low.

23
Good qualityemployment

• Pay, benefits and employment
• Education, initial and ongoing (Lifelong
  learning)
• Supportive environment
• Health and safety
• Career prospects
• Decision latitude (autonomy)
• Meaningful employment
• Social recognition and status
• Equal opportunities and non-discrimination
• Work and family reconciliation

24
Main findingsRecruitment and retention

• There is evidence of actual or envisaged
  shortages of care workers, which may reflect an
  emergent crisis of care.

25
What directions to take?Conditions for good
quality employment

• Strong valuation of all those who are cared for
  (older people as well as children)
• Well organised workforce with strong and
  articulate public voice
• Making the work more visible
• Development of learning organisations

26

• Recognition that good quality employment needed
  for sustainability and quality
• Strong funding base (e.g. Nordic welfare state
  but what other possibilities?)government
  requiring high standards
• Reconceptualisation of care work care work
  is low quality work

27
What directions to take?Move to two tier
workforce

• Care work requires
• Reflective professional practitioner with
  tertiary level education working with
• other worker with upper secondary education

28
What directions to take?Diversifying the
workforce

• Diversifying the workforce especially gender
  and ethnicity is
• necessary
• desirable

29
Concluding questions

• What proportion professional and assistant?
  Does the professional supervise and manage or
  also do front line work? Who blows noses?
• A generalist workforce educated to work across
  all/most of the life course or more specialist
  groups? Nursery worker or lifecourse worker?

30
Concluding questions

• Is a market/managerial orientation compatible
  with a a reflective professional adopting a
  holistic approach and exercising contextualised
  judgement?
• What are the implications for care work of
  cash-for-care policies?

31
Concluding questions

• Is there an emerging crisis of care as womens
  socio-economic position changes fundamentally?
• What solutions?
• Recruit non-employed (welfare to work)
• Recruit under-represented groups (e.g. men)
• Recruit migrant labour
• Revalue work, improve quality

32

• Wherever the present standard for any category
  of job is low qualified women around the age of
  30, there will unmistakably be a strong need to
  improve the quality of job so it will be
  acceptable to people with higher educational
  attainments. And if no improved
  professionalisation of the job is achieved then
  it will rapidly end up in a severe labour supply
  shortage (Géry Coomans, 2002)

33
Concluding questions

• How to pay for good quality employment?
• Per capita GDP DK 31600 Ire35800
• Tax as GDP DK 49 Ire28
• Is care a distinct field of policy, practice
  and employment? Or is care part of other
  fields, e.g. education, pedagogy, health? Does
  care work have an independent future?