BSS: Carers and care work

Question 1

What is the problem surrounding care?

Answer 1

Can true care be performed in the context of paid work?

Question 2

What is care work?

Answer 2

1) Care-work is a type of work that involves caring for others.
2) Work that is done in the service of others.
3) It helps others to develop their capabilities.

Question 3

What is Care? (as an emotional orientation)

Answer 3

1)A feeling or emotion involving a disposition towards others (Love, compassion, empathy)

Question 4

What is care? (Care as work)

Answer 4

1) A form of labour, tending to the needs of another (lifting, washing, bathing, preparing meals).

Question 5

What is care? (as a social relationship)

Answer 5

1) The care relationship can be intimate, familial and enduring OR professional.
2) Involves power and dependency. Often portrayed as a process of control by an active caregiver to a passive care recipient.
3 ) The care recipient might act as a dominant figure. Dependency can be experienced by both.

Question 6

Caring about and caring for difference between men and women.

Answer 6

Men : Caring about
Women : Caring for

Question 7

What are the 5 theories on care?

Answer 7

1) The devaluation theory
2) The public good theory
3) The prisoner of love theory
4) The commodification of emotion
5) The ‘love and money’ theory

Question 8

What is the devaluation theory?

Answer 8

Care = undervalued
>feminised , “free care” at home OR underpaid in formal sector
>Cultural biases limit both wages and state support for care work because of its association with women.

Question 9

What is the publics good theory?

Answer 9

• Emphasises indirect benefits of care work to people other than direct recipients of care. (i.e. a person in our flat decides not to help clean the kitchen, so everyone else clean the kitchen, but he/she still benefits from the cleanliness of the kitchen)
  >under provided by the market because there is no way to turn benefits into profits. e.g. cleaners not receiving any financial benefit

Question 10

What is the The prisoner of love theory?

Answer 10

1) Care is both hard work AND an affective relation
.
2) It is motivatedby concern about the recipient’s welfare.

3) If care workers are actually motivated by an intrinsic value for the work which they do, then economic theory asserts that they will tolerate lower wages for their work.

e.g. nurses receive thankyous/hugs from families ect…

Question 11

What is the commodification of emotion theory?

Answer 11

1) This theory suggests that workers are told to act on emotions that they do not really feel—this is harmful to the workers.
e.g. Flight attendants to “act” as if they are happy and cheerful even when they are not.

Question 12

What is the love and money theory?

Answer 12

1) Aims to reconcile work done out of intrinsic motivation and work done for pay.
> Rewards acknowledge that the work is respected and appreciated.

Question 13

What is the disability of right care perspective?

Answer 13

1) People who are being cared for are viewed as “less powerful”

• The person receiving care is dependant
• The only way to empower of disabled people is to give them more control.
• YOU NOT HAVE CARE AND EMPOWERMENT. but,
  carers being portrayed as active contributors, and care recipients are reduced to passive dependants.

Question 14

What is a carer?

Answer 14

-Individual who carries out the acts of support because of age, physical or learning disability or illness, including mental illness

Question 15

What are the main differences between formal and informal care?

Answer 15

Question 16

What is the social constructnsm of care?

Answer 16

nformal care as a normal/natural activity in family relationships, particularly for women as wives, daughters and daughters-in-law.
2) Increasing significance of men caring as fathers and as spouses looking after their more frail partners.
3) Hegemonic masculinities: economic achievement, power and status legitimising the lack of involvement in care work.

Question 17

What are the current challenges of informal care?

Answer 17

1) declining family size
2) increasing childlessness
3)changing living arrangements - decline in coresidence
4) increase in one-person households
5)Growing ageing population

Question 18

What are some experiences of carers?

Answer 18

1) forced into a position where they have to choose between employment and caring responsibilities
2) Difficulty in returning to work: Many carers experience difficulty in returning to work and experience demotion or reduced income as a result of interrupted employment history
3) Carers may incur care-related costs (travel, additional household expenses, such as extra heating and food, accommodation costs where move of residence has taken place)

> 2 sides to being carer
-sense of love and duty
-slight resentment and despair
*Effects are avoidable through appropriate support