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Obscuring the costs of home care: restructuring at work

Author

Listed:
  • Jane Aronson

    (McMaster University, Canada, aronsonj@mcmaster.ca)

  • Sheila M. Neysmith

    (University of Toronto, Canada, sheila.neysmith@utoronto.ca)

Abstract

This study of displaced home care workers reveals how managed competition serves to produce a flexible and atomized work force. Laid off when their nonprofit employer could not compete in the local home care market, workers blamed their employer and their union for their jeopardy. Obscured from local view was the role of government policy in offloading services to the market, benefiting privileged participants in the hospital, professional and market health care sectors. Workers’ indignation at their own and their elderly clients’ unfair treatment dissipated: they had to attend to the practical imperatives in their lives, and were unable to locate a target for their protest. Resolving to be flexible and self-sufficient in the future, they struggled to rework identities as committed carers. The study illuminates how particular organizational and political processes render services more meagre and labour more flexible, and suggests particular possibilities for both accommodating and disrupting those trends.

Suggested Citation

  • Jane Aronson & Sheila M. Neysmith, 2006. "Obscuring the costs of home care: restructuring at work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(1), pages 27-45, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:20:y:2006:i:1:p:27-45
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017006061272
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Light, Donald W., 2001. "Managed competition, governmentality and institutional response in the United Kingdom," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1167-1181, April.
    2. Jane Aronson & Margaret Denton & Isik Zeytinoglu, 2004. "Market-Modelled Home Care in Ontario: Deteriorating Working Conditions and Dwindling Community Capacity," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 30(1), pages 111-125, March.
    3. Jane Aronson & Sheila M. Neysmith, 2001. "Manufacturing Social Exclusion in the Home Care Market," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 27(2), pages 151-165, June.
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    Cited by:

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