Longing for a House in Ghana: Ghanaians’ Responses to the Dignity Threats of Elder Care Work in the United States

Ethos ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cati Coe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Work

Part-time by Gender, Not Choice: The Gender Gap in Involuntary Part-time Work

2020 ◽  
pp. 073112142093774
Author(s):  
Corey Pech ◽  
Elizabeth Klainot-Hess ◽  
Davon Norris
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Occupational Segregation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Current Population Survey Data ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Part Time Work

Gender inequality in the labor market is a key focus of stratification research. Increasingly, variation in hours worked separates men and women’s employment experiences. Though women often voluntarily work part-time at higher rates than men, involuntary part-time work is both analytically distinct from voluntary part-time work and leaves workers economically precarious. To date, researchers have not systematically investigated gender disparities in involuntary part-time work in the United States. Utilizing Current Population Survey data, we test for a gender gap in involuntary part-time work and evaluate two potential mechanisms: occupational segregation and penalties for care work. We find that women are much more likely than men to work in involuntary part-time positions. Occupational segregation and a care work penalty partially, but not fully, explain this gap. Findings extend existing theories of gender inequality in the workforce and show how an underresearched dimension of job quality creates gender stratification in the United States.

The New American Servitude

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caiti Coe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Immigrants ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Employment Sector ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Work Affect

In our contemporary period of human mobility and global capitalism, political identifications are being configured in multiple sites beyond the nation-state. The book’s theoretical innovation is to analyze what happens at work in terms of larger processes of political belonging. In particular, it examines how the recognitions and reciprocities entailed by care work affect the political belonging of new African migrants in the United States. Care for America’s growing seniors is increasingly provided by migrants, and it is only expected to grow, as experts in health care anticipate a care crunch. Because of the demand for elder care and the low barriers to entry, new African immigrants have adopted elder care as a niche employment sector. However, elder care puts care workers into racialized, gendered and age hierarchies, and made it difficult to achieve social and economic mobility. Through working in elder care, African care workers see the United States as uninhabitable, in the sense that it does not reciprocate their labor and makes a respected personhood impossible. This book highlights a more complex process of racialization and incorporation for Black immigrants than is commonly posited.

scholarly journals ARTICLE: Elder Care in the United States: Filial Responsibility Laws, Judicial Decisions, and Enforcement Issues

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sesha Kethineni (Prairie View A & M University) ◽  
Gowtami Rajendran (University of Houston-Clear Lake)
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Filial Responsibility ◽  
Judicial Decisions

Being Able to Care

2019 ◽  
pp. 113-134
Author(s):  
David L. Blustein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Boston College

This chapter reviews the ways in which caregiving and care work relate to work and well-being in the United States. Beginning with a discussion of how care work has been gendered and marginalized within discussions of working, the chapter reviews the foundation of how caregiving functions both psychologically and socially. The contributions of the participants from the Boston College Working Project enrich and deepen the perspective about caregiving and work. The chapter discusses new contributions on caring motivation and the relationships between care work and marketplace work, culminating in a call for a serious examination of how caregiving can be supported both financially and socially to ensure that all have opportunities to care for others in a dignified and nurturing fashion.

Elder Care as Family Labor

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEFFREY W. DWYER ◽  
KAREN SECCOMBE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Family Caregivers ◽  
Family Caregiving ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Labor ◽  
Frail Elders ◽  
Nationally Representative

This research indicates that gender differences in the performance of specific caregiving tasks and the amount of time spent providing care by family caregivers of frail elders should be considered in the context of family position-related norms and expectations. Using a nationally representative sample of noninstitutionalized impaired elderly people in the United States ( N = 813), the results show that husbands (when compared to wives) and daughters (when compared to sons) report spending more time and performing a greater number of caregiving tasks. The authors suggest that family position may confound interpretations regarding the association between gender and family caregiving.

LGBT OLDER ADULTS, CHOSEN FAMILY, AND CAREGIVING

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Knauer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender ◽  
High Level

AbstractIn the United States, informal elder care is principally the responsibility of younger relatives. Adult children perform the majority of elder care and non-relatives perform only 14 percent of care. Caregiving in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, community follows a very different pattern that reflects the importance of “chosen family” in the lives of LGBT older adults. Instead of relying on relatives, LGBT older adults largely care for each other. Relatives provide only 11 percent of all elder care. This article explores the high level of caregiving by non-relatives in the LGBT community. It asks what motivates friends, neighbors, and community members to provide care for someone whom the law considers a legal stranger. It also asks what steps policy makers can take to facilitate and encourage this type of caregiving. Finally, it asks what lessons can be learned from LGBT older adults about the nature of both caregiving and community. As the aging population becomes more diverse, aging policies will have to become more inclusive to address the differing needs of various communities, including LGBT older adults. The potential lessons learned from the pattern of elder care in the LGBT community, however, extend far beyond a simple commitment to diversity.

scholarly journals Filipino Home Care Workers: Invisible Frontline Workers in the COVID-19 Crisis in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110004
Author(s):  
Katherine Nasol ◽  
Valerie Francisco-Menchavez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Home Care ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Elder Care ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Home Care Workers

Filipino home care workers are at the frontlines of assisted living facilities and residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs), yet their work has largely been unseen. We attribute this invisibility to the existing elder care crisis in the United States, further exacerbated by COVID-19. Based on quantitative and qualitative data with Filipino workers before and during the COVID-19 crisis, we find that RCFEs have failed to comply with labor standards long before the pandemic where the lack of state regulation denied health and safety protections for home care workers. The racial inequities under COVID-19 via the neoliberal approach to the crisis puts home care workers at more risk. We come to this analysis through Critical Immigration Studies framing Filipino labor migration as it is produced by neoliberalism and Racial Capitalist constructs. Last, while the experiences of Filipino home care workers during the pandemic expose the elder care industry’s exploitation, we find that they are also creating strategies to take care of one another.

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