Research project Love and skills: comparing the valuation of care work in different arenas
Relational and emotional labour in caring occupations
Establishing trusting relationships and responding to the emotions of others constitute a fundamental component of work within caring professions. However, these relational and emotional dimensions are often undervalued and typically omitted from job descriptions and performance assessments, which play a central role in wage bargaining models. This project investigates how care work is valued across six professions: registered nurse, assistant nurse, care aide, social worker, preschool teacher, and childcare worker. By comparing the valuation of care work across different welfare state sectors, the project aims to generate new insights into the relationship between the lived experience of care work, the societal status of caregiving, and the mechanisms by which caring occupations are (under)valued.
Project description
This project draws on feminist economics and uses a holistic model to
explore the valuation of care work in six occupations; registered nurse, assistant nurse, social worker, care aide, preschool teacher and childcare worker. These occupations have all undergone sweeping changes resulting in conflicting logics between professional and organisational standards for performing care work. By comparing how these contradictions shape care work in different arenas, the project contributes to new knowledge about the relationship between experiences of care work, the societal status of caregiving and the valuation of jobs in caring occupations. Furthermore, by analysing occupations that require university degrees as well as occupations that require high school diplomas or no education beyond compulsory schooling, the project also explores the role of education and professionalisation in the valuation of care work.
Methodologically, the project combines several approaches in three interrelated sub-studies: 1) review of research and policies of evaluating care work; 2) workshops, on-site observations and self-reporting of care work; and 3) experiences of caregiving and care work in different arenas. This field-organising and theory-building should generate new findings and new concepts and provide a strong foundation for future research and policy-making in care services.
Project members
Project managers
Helene Brodin
Senior lecturer
Members
Sara Erlandsson
Senior lecturer
Rebecka Strandell
Senior lecturer
