Daly T, Szebehely M. Unheard voices, unmapped terrain: care work in long-term residential care for older people in Canada and Sweden
Int J Soc Welfare 2011: ••: ••–••© 2011 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.
This article aims to contribute to comparative welfare state research by analysing the everyday work life of long-term care facility workers in Canada and Sweden. The study’s empirical base was a survey of fixed and open-ended questions. The article presents results from a subset of respondents (care aides and assistant nurses) working in facilities in three Canadian provinces (n= 557) and across Sweden (n= 292). The workers’ experiences were linked to the broader economic and organisational contexts of residential care in the two jurisdictions. We found a high degree of country-specific differentiation of work organisation: Canada follows a model of highly differentiated task-oriented work, whereas Sweden represents an integrated relational care work model. Reflecting differences in the vertical division of labour, the Canadian care aides had more demanding working conditions than their Swedish colleagues. The consequences of these models for care workers, for older people and for their families are discussed.