Transcript Gender and Paid Care Work in Modern Welfare States: issues of work-life balance Clare Ungerson and Sue Yeandle.

Gender and Paid Care Work in
Modern Welfare States: issues
of work-life balance
Clare Ungerson and
Sue Yeandle
Study: The Shifting Boundaries of Paid
& Unpaid Care Work:
Future of Work phase 2 project
• International study of paid and unpaid work in the
domiciliary care of older people.
• Focus on new forms of care work where, through state
subsidy, older people become direct employers of their
caring labour, in their own homes.
• National studies in the UK, France, Netherlands,
Austria and Italy.
• Methods qualitative: 10 interviews with elderly care users
in each country, and up to 2 of their current carers leading
to approximately 20 interviews with caregiver/workers in
each country
Aims of the research
• To explore the concept of the ‘commodification of care’
using comparative empirical data drawn, in part, from
countries where care users can employ their relatives to
care, and/or where there is no regulation of careworkers’
position
• to assess the impact of 'cash for care' policies on the
labour market for care work & on employer/employee
relations in the home
• to explore whether these policies maintain or improve
the social rights of care workers
• to contribute to debates on the management &
organisation of these systems
• to consider how far devolved employer / employee
relations into the household can be, or should be,
regulated by the state.
‘Commodification’ of care and work/life
balance
• ‘Work/Life’ balance dichotomy makes little sense in
this context
• If relatives can be ‘employed’, then ‘life’ becomes
‘work’.
• ‘Affect’ and ‘contract’ move into hybridity. Particular
impact on the use and ownership of time.
• If long-term relationships and co-residence encouraged
through low payments to live-in undocumented care
workers, then ‘work’ becomes ‘life’.
• Emotions engage, privacy becomes problematic.
Figure 1: The ‘Cross of Routed Wages’
Figure 2: Carers
Figure 3: Schemes for Organising ‘Routed Wages’: Type of
Payment and Time Availability
‘Life’ becomes ‘work’ (1)
• Where relatives can be paid, this can
transform unrecognised,
unremunerated, uncompensated ‘care’
into full status ‘employment’ as seen
from the public domain
Austrian woman caring for her mother-in-law,
employed by ‘Caritas’(1)
You can only say that I simply felt as if I had
been promoted. Society also saw it totally
different then. Suddenly it was “Aha, you’re
doing a job”. Although I didn’t do anything
differently before, it was suddenly seen as
self-evident…..as soon as you’re in
employment and can say to the doctor that
you have your own health insurance, it
appears you are a better type of person.
From the point of view of society, this type
of employment is very good for women.
‘Life’ becomes ‘work’(2)
• But, in the domestic domain, ‘life’ can
never quite become ‘work’
• If relatives are paid, ‘work’ always remains
a hybrid of affect and contract
• It can mean that ‘work’ intrudes into every
aspect of ‘life’
Austrian woman caring for her mother,
employed by ‘Caritas’ (2)
• ‘I earn more than I did in the factory. I was
very surprised. On top of that I am in a
proper employee relationship here and, in
the factory, I was just another poorly paid
worker’.
• ‘The minus side is that I never have any free
time. I can’t go out in the evenings if I want
to….I can go out once a month, and then I
have to be home by 3am because I’ve got to
work to a prescribed time. I’ll be 39 this
year, but I have to be home by 3am. She
doesn’t like it.’
Where cash payments to users are low
• Users make trade offs between time and wages
• Where there is a very low wage care labour
market (typically ‘grey’ or ‘informal economic
activity’) users can pay for 24/7 care with a mix
of low wage and in kind accommodation and
subsistence
• Where there is a credentialised care labour
market, users can pay qualified workers for short
bursts of care time
• Each type of trade off has its own impact on
‘work/life’ balance
Low cash for care: employing ‘grey’ labour
• Work can take over life:
“Living in this lady’s house helps us enormously.
However, it’s not like living in your own house….you
never have a moment free as you do when you’re at
home, not even when you’re sleeping. It is not a
normal job. A normal job is when you know what time
you start and what time you finish". (Italian care worker)
• Or work is so important, ‘life’ takes place elsewhere:
‘I would like to have my children here and living with
me within five years, working in a rest home during the
day and going home to them in the evening’ (Italian care
worker)
Low cash for care: employing credentialised labour
• Work is rushed
• Careworkers want to spend more time, through affect, but cannot:
• I asked, “Until what time are we to work in the evening?” I was
told,“Usually you should be home by 7.30 at the latest”. Yes, but
when I have both clients. Like this evening: I have Mr M. first.
Friday is griddle cake night, the night on which he eats best. So the
griddle cakes have to be heated up, the egg has to be placed on top
and everything. I don’t know where he puts it all! He eats 3 of them!
But it makes him happy. On Friday he treats himself. You cannot do
it in 5 minutes! Afterwards there is the washing up, and then he has
to be undressed. As I have shopping to do this evening I will take
1/4 of an hour to go to the nearest grocers, it’s more expensive but
what can you do? On Fridays, instead of ½ an hour it takes a good
3/4 of an hour, plus 1/4 of an hour for shopping, that makes 1 hour’.
(French care worker, working for an agency)
Work in the private home
of an elderly care user
• There are problems over the ownership of
time, privacy, and private space.
• The work involved often involves intimacy
and bodily care, and this engages emotions.
• Employment can come to an abrupt end or be
unexpectedly interrupted
Austrian woman caring for her mother with cash-forcare support:
" A really close friend of mine actually said to my face
that she wouldn't come to see me because my father is
always there. It puts an enormous strain on friendships –
you are simply more isolated and not so free."
UK care workers employed through Direct Payments:
" She is quite apprehensive at night because she doesn't
know who's coming in. It must be daunting, because she
goes to bed and these people are left in her home."
" It’s just across the road, and he rings me up a lot. 'Oh,
can you just do this and that”, like out of my time.'”
Peruvian migrant worker, living in with an elderly care user in
Milan: " The woman could not walk unaided, and then could not
sleep at night, she wanted to go to the toilet every two minutes,
shouted, said she wanted to go out. It was tough, helping her day
and night, because I never managed to get a rest."
Spanish care worker, referring to her employer of 26 years:
"It was a job with no fixed timetable – for a fixed payment I was
obliged to stay with her for 2 hours a day – which could be more or
less according to the situation.. In practice, sometimes in the
morning, sometimes in the afternoon – and I had to keep myself free
to go to her immediately. ... At a certain point we didn't understand
each other. This all happened because she became jealous of my
little grandchild. One time I said that I could not come to her house
for a week because I had to take care of my grandson, and she got
very angry. We quarrelled and I decided to go. Now I feel great
remorse in having done so, because I really am very fond of her."
UK Care worker, employed through Direct Payments:
"It is a very bad thing actually, because you do get
clients ringing in suddenly and saying, 'We don't need
the service today', or maybe they just get taken into
hospital - that happens a lot actually - because then you
lose that work then, don't you? Sometimes it can be for
2 or 3 weeks. I've lost out a lot. Just recently, actually,
because 2 of my clients have died. And another one
was in respite, and a 4th one we had to suspend the
service for some time because the person had had a
stroke and needed 2 people to handle her. I couldn't
handle her by myself, she was so heavy. So I've sort of
lost 4 clients in one week, which worked out at 16
hours, which is a lot to me."
What happens when
cash-for-care payments are
unregulated?
• Informal carers can replace some of their
own care work by employing others, giving
them freedom and space
• For the carers they employ, these caring
jobs may jeopardise work-life balance
• Informal carers do not always see the cash
as turning their care into work
• Care workers can feel exploited or 'bought'
Italian woman, 57, caring for her 67 year old
husband following a stroke:
"I do not put my husband's (cash for care)
money in my pocket, but I use it to pay the
person who looks after him while I am at work.
Every so often I tell my husband that if he had
to pay me for my work in caring for him the
whole of his pension would not be enough,
considering that I look after him day and night,
except for the 24 hours that I go to work
weekly."
Migrant mother and daughter caring for an elderly
woman in Milan:
"Sometimes I manage to sleep some hours in a row at
night. It depends on how she is. Some nights she doesn't
sleep, but screams, and is always asking for help. There
is an armchair near her bed. I put myself there and every
so often go to sleep for a bit, but I don't always manage
to." (Daughter)
The son and daughter-in-law tell me, 'We cannot change
over to another person, you must stay here as long as
mother survives.' I have committed myself. .. I got ill –
but I live here, so I stay and work as usual. (Mother)
85 year old Italian woman, mainly cared for by her son,
but employing a man to clean for 4 hours pw:
" I have not employed (the cleaner) in the strict
meaning of the word. He simply does me a
favour, gives me a hand, and I pay him 50,000
lire a week for this favour. Sometimes I also give
him a little present, so he thinks I am fair and
does the cleaning better. For me, this person is
already a friend. Even when he doesn't have to
come to me to do the cleaning, every so often he
comes to the door to ask me how I am, if
everything is well, if I need anything. I've already
known him for a very long time. (He calls me)
Signora, even though I would like him to use 'tu'
to me."
Peruvian care worker living in with her elderly
client in Milan:
"When she watches television in the afternoon,
seeing that she ... doesn't need me, I want to take
the opportunity to write a letter to my family, but
she does not want that. She wants me to stay
always by her side, and watch television seated
next to her, so if she sees me going away, she says
'Where are you? What are you doing? I pay you to
stay with me and keep me company. I don't pay
you to wander about the house.' However, she has
got to understand that she has not bought me with
that little salary she pays me."
Conclusions
• This project demonstrates how policy can
profoundly influence ‘work/life’ balance but in
unexpected and unintentional ways
• We have presented some extremes:
• The impact on illegal labour markets and
undocumented labour, where ‘work/life balance’
disappears altogether
• The impact on previously unpaid informal carers
who, through payment, acquire self esteem and
respect from others when ‘life’ becomes ‘work’
Conclusions
• The implications for UK policy are complex:
• Direct Payments are high on the agenda, and the
regulations are changing: in future relatives can
be employed to care under discretion
• The level at which DP are funded and their
regulation will have profound impacts on the
organisation of:
• Labour markets
• The public and private lives of the
careworker/givers who participate in those labour
markets