Transcript Plain Old Disrespect: Explorations of Recognition and

PLAIN OLD DISRESPECT: EXPLORATIONS OF
RECOGNITION AND INTRINSIC MOTIVATION IN
CARE WORK
Siobhan Austen
&
Therese Jefferson
International Association for Feminist Economics Annual Conference Human Well-Being for
the 21st Century: Weaving Alliances from Feminist Economics, Barcelona, Spain, 27-29 June.
Introduction
o Defining care work: paid employment for the provision
of elder care, child care, health and education services.
o Economic significance: care work is accounting for a
rising and important proportion of measured GDP, and
subject to both demand- and supply-side pressures as
a result of population ageing and increases in the
relative cost of service provision.
o Aged care work is particularly important: the demand
for aged care workers will increase substantially in
coming decades as a result of population ageing and a
decrease in the relative availability of unpaid carers.
We need to understand the determinants
of the supply of care work
• However, mainstream economic models do
not support this. Their limited
conceptualisation of human motivation
cannot capture the range of reasons why
women enter and remain in care work.
• Feminist economic analyses of care work
provide better insights. However, there is
scope/need for further theoretical and
empirical work.
This paper
• Introduces the concept of recognition to an
analysis of labour supply in Australia’s aged care
sector.
– Contributing data on the meaning and importance of
recognition to caring motivation from
• a small qualitative study of the working experiences of mid
life aged care workers; &
• A survey of 4000 mid-life Australian aged care workers
– Discussing theoretical perspectives on how to
understand and respond to the issue of recognition.
Recognition
The valuing of particular others for their
achievements, and in particular for the
contribution that they make to societal goals
• Its importance is emphasised in Axel Honneth’s
approach to social justice
“...the justice or well-being of a society is
proportionate to its ability to secure conditions of
mutual recognition under which personal identityformation, hence individual self-realization, can
proceed adequately.”
The qualitative phase
• Collected qualitative data via interviews with
14 carers/nursing assistants
– employed in 2 Western Australian aged care
agencies
– ranging in age from 47 to 79.
The qualitative phase
• Interviews targeted the women’s feelings about their
work
– Can we talk about some of the things that you enjoy
about your work or that make your work difficult?
– How do you feel about working in aged and
community care?
The qualitative phase
Our results indicate
that many carers
perceive that their
contributions are not
respected by
members of their
own families, friends
and the broader
community.
Her father felt she
was ‘wasting her
brain’ by working
as a carer.
“my sons think it’s
demeaning” and “I
think that’s what
most people think”.
The reasons for relatively
negative perceptions held by
family and friends, as
described by care workers,
varied.
For some it appeared that
the ‘dirty’ nature of the
work undertaken by care
workers meant that it was
strongly perceived as low
status.
It’s one of the jobs perhaps
that when you’re looking
after people who cannot
look after themselves, well I
know there’s nothing
glamorous about it but a lot
of people don’t even really
like to stop and think “Oh,
good on you” but most of
them just go “Oh, no,
never.”
“... [we, care workers, are] really
trying hard, working at jobs and
doing personal care that a lot of
people would not ever touch,
that needs someone who is very
Other carers spoke
good at being with people, who
generally of the lack of does not make that person feel
value for their work in as though they’re a nuisance or
society.
a pain in the butt or just a waste
of space and to do all of those
things. I think [as care workers]
these people are not valued to
what they should be. Definitely
not.”
And several carers
identified the
critical role of
wages in providing
a source of social
recognition.
“[the manager]was actually
talking ... about how without
‘us’, the support workers, they
could not function and I got so
angry. I got so angry – if I’d been
brave enough I would have stood
up and said ‘What an absolute
load of rot’. We get paid like
we’re just peasants.”
“They [we, the carers] could go to
Subway and make sandwiches and
get more money than they get
looking after people’s lives.”
• Importantly,
misrecognition affects
care workers’ wellbeing and their
motivation to continue
in aged care.
It’s all tied into that
‘how do other people
see my job” and I’ve
said people see it as
quite a demeaning sort
of a job. So that affects
me. That makes me
feel dissatisfied a lot in
life I suppose and I
hope that doesn’t
reflect on the way I do
my job
The quantitative phase
• A dedicated survey sent to mid life women
employed as either carers or nurses in 18 aged
and community care organisations across
Australia in late 2011.
• 7656 survey forms distributed to the sample
population, of which 3177 (41.5%) were
returned.
• An on-line version of the survey, advertised
through the websites of the relevant unions and
peak care organisation, attracted a further 773
responses.
The quantitative phase
• Aim was to identify the factors that influence the
willingness and ability of mid-life women to continue in
their aged care roles
• Some questions that specifically targeted the issue of
recognition.
– Are your thoughts about leaving paid work contributed to by a
perception that “your work in aged care is not valued”?
– Do you feel that your work is valued by your supervisors,
management, family, people in your community, and the clients
or residents in your care?
– Is sufficient time available to provide the care she believes her
clients need?
– Does your job involve ‘dirty’ work?
The quantitative phase
• Early findings show the importance of
understanding the motivation of care workers
to remain in their paid aged care work roles.
– more than 47% of the women we surveyed
reported that they thought about leaving the
sector.
• Almost 30% of this group said that they had these
thoughts at least once week; and
• a further 40% had thoughts of leaving at least once a
month.
The quantitative phase
• Recognition is important:
– “my work is not valued” was a common reason for thoughts
about leaving.
– Dissatisfaction with pay was high in the group of survey
respondents and almost 50% of respondents rated their pay
as “not at all” satisfactory in relation to the importance of
their work to society.
– Most of the care workers reported that their work was
highly valued by their clients and the families of their clients.
– However, community support was less widely perceived and
many care workers perceived low levels of recognition from
the managers of their organisation.
– Almost 75% said they did dirty work.
Conclusions and further directions
• The results of the initial phases of our study
indicate that misrecognition harms aged care
workers and impacts on their motivation to care.
• However, a key theme in relevant literature
(especially work by Nancy Fraser) is that there are
substantial risks involved in focusing on
recognition for care workers.
– By emphasising the importance of community
recognition of aged care work we may divert attention
from institutional misrecognition and maldistribution,
and from the urgent need to improve care workers’
wages.
Conclusions and further directions
So how can misrecognition be addressed?
Some ideas:
•Address the invisibility of aged care work in the
community.
•Challenge claims that care should not pay
• Publicise and encourage ‘best practices’ management,
which would include the allocation of sufficient time to
care.
•Ensure that efforts at improving community recognition of
aged care workers does not limit efforts at addressing the
issues of maldistribution through promotion of unionisation
and public funding