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Body work and later-life care in Turkey: a qualitative study of paid and unpaid carers of older people

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2019

Yelda Özen
Yelda Özen*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara, Turkey
*
*Corresponding author. Email: yeldaozen73@yahoo.com, yozen@ybu.edu.tr
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Abstract

The ageing population of Turkey has brought later-life care into question. Family care remains most prevalent, but institutional, paid and professional care are increasing. Literature in Turkey has focused on the medical or social policy aspects but not care-givers’ experiences, nor how the care is performed. This study aims to illuminate care-givers’ experiences using qualitative methods, through in-depth interviews in Ankara with 19 care-givers providing home care for people aged 65 and over. Commonalities and differences were revealed among unpaid family care-givers, paid care-givers and professional care-givers. First, whether paid or unpaid, the bodily and emotional aspects of care work are intertwined. To cope with the ‘negativities’ involved in the work, nurses usually medicalised bodily tasks, unpaid care-givers cited traditional responsibilities and employed infantilisation, while paid care-givers mostly informalised the relationship, infantilised the person cared for and underlined their asexuality. Secondly, care work is gendered; silenced, invisible and ambivalent; related to intimacy with older bodies; and performed in the home space, which blurs the distinction between the private and public field for paid care. Finally, it involves emotional work regarding managing the bodily aspects and navigating the relationships surrounding the older person; and it is labour-intensive with an exploitative character.

Keywords

care worklater-life carebody workhome carecare-givers
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 40 , Issue 10 , October 2020 , pp. 2106 - 2127
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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