gender issues in care work in europe claire cameron and peter moss thomas coram research unit,...

Gender Issues in Care Work in Europe

Claire Cameron and Peter Moss

Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of

London

Care Work in Europe• EC funded 2001 - 2005

• 6 Partners– Denmark, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden

and UK

• Main objective– to contribute to the development of good quality

employment in care work in services that are responsive to needs of changing societies

Doing the study

1. Mapping the care workforce; surveying use and demand for care services; reviewing literature on quality, job satisfaction and gender issues

2. Three cross-national case studies of work: with young children (HU, DK, SP);

with older people (SW, ENG, SP + HU); with adults with severe disabilities (DK, NE, SW)

Development of video-based method for cross-national study of practice in care work (SOPHOS)

3. Innovative practice (36 examples); dissemination

Profile of care workers

• Highly gendered (% women highest with children and elderly)

• Mostly 25-44 (like total workforce) - but no information on % with own care responsibilities

• Often (not always) low paid • Mostly specialist• Career prospects usually limited – vertically and

horizontally

The Danish pedagogue

• High level of education• Less gendered – 25% male in some services• Better pay (and other conditions)• Generalist - work with people from 0 to 100; main

worker with children, young people and younger adults

• Broad career prospects - vertical and horizontal

Gender of care workers• LFS for DK, ES, SE & UK: between 86% and

99% of workers with elderly people and with very young children are women.

• More male workers with older children and adults• Very few with elderly people or very young

children• Same pattern but higher proportion of male

workers in Denmark – up to ¼

Male workers in CWE• Case study of work with young children

2/36 (2 DK, 0 HU, 0 ES)

• Case study with people with severe disabilities 12/43 (6 DK, 2 SE, 4 N)

• Case study of work with elderly people 12/54 (5 SE, 4 EN, 3 ES)

National policies

• England: target of 6% as part of childcare diversity targets – dropped in favour of ‘more diversity’

• Norway: target of 20% preschool teachers recently reaffirmed

• Local initiatives in Belgium, Scotland, England, Norway, Denmark

Explanations

• Low salaries are not attractive to men?

• Care work is ‘naturally’ ‘women’s work’?

• Education and employment assume women students and workers

What do care workers say about gender issues?

• A matter of choice for clients/ service users

• A matter of assisting women workers

• A matter of gender equality in workplaces

• A matter of improving/challenging the kind of ‘care’ on offer

A matter of choice

• For elderly people and their personal care

• To extend the repertoire of conversation to include ‘male’ interests

• For people with disabilities to meet and be together, to have staff role models of btoh genders

A matter of assisting women workers

• Looking after technical equipment

• Using their physical strength to lift, or deal with confused or aggressive people

A matter of gender equality in workplaces

• Longstanding discourse of equality in DK, SE

• Also a matter of diversity – more minority ethnic workers needed too

Barriers to change?

• Male care workers are ‘unmanly’• Female workers are ‘natural’

• Care work does not pay enough for a family wage

• No specific strategies to promote male workers in elder care or adult care

A matter of recognizing difference?

• Men have a higher threshold

• Men do something else

• Men have a different kind of energy

• Adjust the way work is done

• It’s great. I think we should have men. They do something else. When I play football with the boys, which I seldom do because it doesn’t interest me, I find it hard. So it’s completely different when X [male assistant] does it. He’s a big joker. There’s no one can make a fire like him. You can get sissy fires, but his fires are definitely macho ones.

I imagine it could be quite horrible (to be the only male worker)…We are supposed to have two so that at least they can keep each other company a little…But we are also women and the way we try and work around that is by also taking on some of those things. By me climbing trees too. Well, the last time we went out in the woods, about 14 days ago, we were out to catch tadpoles. Well didn’t I crawl out on to the tree trunk out over the lake!…I suddenly noticed a very quiet audience of children at the [lake] edge. I think that they simply began to feel nervous because, if I fell in, what would happen to them?

A matter of following stereotypes?

• Men are more business like, women deal in tenderness

Or perhaps

• Men who go into care work are different?

• They cite their professional competencies

• They have ‘soft’ values – need to be caring, are ‘special people’

A matter of individual difference?

• Adult security more important than gender difference

• You cannot generalize about men and women – need to be versatile and an all-rounder

What changes can be made?

• Sustained, funded localised initiatives seem to be working

• Ask not what keeps women in but what keeps men out?

• Adjust organisation and content of training programmes, re-examine content of work, local networks to avoid isolation

Further Reading• Cameron, C., Moss, P and Owen, C. (1999) Men in the

Nursery: Gender and caring work, Paul Chapman• Care work in Europe website http://144.82.31.4/carework/• Briefing paper

http://k1.ioe.ac.uk/tcru/Ped_BRIEFING_PAPER.pdf• Introducing pedagogy into the children’s workforce

http://k1.ioe.ac.uk/tcru/Introducing%20Pedagogy.pdf• Rolfe, H. (2005) Men in Childcare:

http://www.eoc.org.uk/PDF/men%20in%20childcarewp%2035%20full%20report.pdf