IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v30y2016i5p731-749.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How institutions matter for job characteristics, quality and experiences: a comparison of home care work for older people in Australia and Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Gabrielle Meagher

    (Macquarie University, Australia; Stockholm University, Sweden)

  • Marta Szebehely

    (Stockholm University, Sweden)

  • Jane Mears

    (Western Sydney University, Australia)

Abstract

This article seeks to understand a puzzling finding: that workers in publicly funded home care for older people in Australia, compared to those in Sweden, feel that they are better able to meet their clients’ needs, that their workplaces are less pressed, and that their work is less burdensome and more compatible with their family and social commitments. This finding seems to challenge expectations fostered by comparative sociological research that job quality and care services are inferior in Australia compared to Sweden. Informed by comparative institutionalist theory and care research, the structures and dynamics of the care systems in the two countries are analysed, along with findings from the NORDCARE survey of home care workers conducted in Sweden in 2005 ( n =166) and Australia in 2010 ( n =318). Differences in the work and working conditions in the two countries are explained by the dynamic interaction of national institutional and highly gendered sector-level effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabrielle Meagher & Marta Szebehely & Jane Mears, 2016. "How institutions matter for job characteristics, quality and experiences: a comparison of home care work for older people in Australia and Sweden," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(5), pages 731-749, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:30:y:2016:i:5:p:731-749
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017015625601
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017015625601
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017015625601?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Askenazy & Jean-Baptiste Berry & Françoise Carré & Sophie Prunier-Poulmaire & Chris Tilly, 2012. "Working in large food retailers in France and the USA: the key role of institutions," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 26(4), pages 588-605, August.
    2. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00754714 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Merita Jokela, 2018. "Patterns of Precarious Employment in a Female-Dominated Sector in Five Affluent Countries - The Case of Paid Domestic Labor Sector in Five Welfare States," LIS Working papers 746, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Askenazy, Philippe & Palier, Bruno, 2018. "France: rising precariousness supported by the welfare state," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1801, CEPREMAP.
    2. Santanu Sarkar & Andy Charlwood, 2014. "Do cultural differences explain differences in attitudes towards unions? Culture and attitudes towards unions among call centre workers in Britain and India," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 56-76, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:30:y:2016:i:5:p:731-749. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.