“Who Cares? Home-Based and Community-Based Care Workers’ Development of Positive Occupational Identity

• In Event: Constructing the Carer Across the Lifespan of Care: Home and Community-Based Care Contexts Across the Globe

Abstract

Workers currently employed in the care industry receive numerous evaluations by clients, agencies, and the general public about the value of their role. Based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with care workers, agency representatives, and care workers’ significant others, this paper explores how paid care workers at a Spanish community-based eldercare facility and a home-based care agency in New York City attempted to construct a positive occupational identity. The data indicated significant devaluation of the material tasks of caregiving and unrealistic expectations about companionship and support. Care workers in the community facility were more easily able to engage in positive reframing, due to the important role played by peers in the development of positive occupational identity. The paper considers the implications for how home-based care workers, a remote workforce who must construct occupational identity in the absence of other coworkers, might maintain a positive image of the self at work.

Author

• Kirstie Lynd McAllum, Universite de Montreal