Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T15:02:17.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender Regimes in Ontario Nursing Homes: Organization, Daily Work, and Bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2017

Palle Storm ,
Susan Braedley  and
Sally Chivers
Palle Storm*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work, Stockholm University
Susan Braedley
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, Carleton University
Sally Chivers
Affiliation:
English Department, Trent University
*
†La correspondance et les demandes de tire-à-part doivent être adressées à : / Correspondence and requests for offprints should be sent to: Palle Storm, Ph.D. Candidate Stockholm University Department of Social Work SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden <palle.storm@socarb.su.se>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Today more men work in the long-term care sector, but men are still in the minority. Little is known about men’s experiences in care work, and the dilemmas and opportunities they face because of their gender. This article focuses on men care workers’ integration into the organization and flow of nursing home work as perceived by these workers and staff members. Using a rapid ethnography method in two Ontario nursing homes, we found work organization affected interpretations of gender and race, and that workers’ scope for discretion affected the integration and acceptance of men as care workers. In a nursing home with a rigid work organization and little worker discretion, women workers perceived men workers as a problem, whereas at a nursing home with a more flexible work organization that stressed relational care, both women and men workers perceived men workers as a resource in the organization.

Résumé

Aujourd’hui, des hommes, ainsi que des personnes immigrantes, travaillent dans le secteur des soins de longue durée. Cette nouvelle donne modifie profondément le stéréotype du travailleur de ce secteur, soit une femme d’un certain âge née au Canada. Bien que toujours minoritaires, on en sait peu sur les expériences de travail des hommes qui prodiguent des soins de longue durée, ainsi que sur les dilemmes et les opportunités auxquels ils font face en raison de leur genre. Cet article examine comment le personnel de deux centres d’hébergement et de soins de longue durée ontariens perçoit les travailleurs masculins de ce secteur. S’appuyant sur une méthode ethnographique rapide, qui comprend à la fois des entrevues et des observations, nous avons constaté que le style de gestion de ces établissements entraîne des répercussions significatives sur l’intégration et l’acceptation des travailleurs masculins. Dans un centre d’hébergement doté d’une organisation du travail rigide et laissant peu de place au pouvoir décisionnel des travailleurs, les travailleurs masculins sont perçus négativement. Au contraire, dans des centres d’hébergement dotés d’une organisation du travail plus flexible qui met l’emphase sur une approche relationnelle du care, les travailleurs masculins sont perçus plus positivement. Finalement, des processus de racialisation influencent également les relations de genre dans les centres d’hébergement et de soins de longue durée.

Keywords

agingnursing homeCanadawork organizationmasculinityracevieillissementmaison de reposCanadaorganisation du travailla race
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 196 - 208
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The research presented in this article was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for the project Re-imagine Long-term Care: An International Study of Promising Practices and by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research for the project Healthy Ageing in Residential Places (HARP); PI was Pat Armstrong for both projects. The first author has been supported by the Department of Social Work, Stockholm University, and by funds from Swedish Research Council for Health, Life and Welfare (Forte).

References

Braedley, S. (2006). Someone to watch over you: Gender, class and social reproduction. In Bezanson, K. & Luxton, M. (Eds.), Social Reproduction: Feminist Political Economy Takes on Neoliberalism (pp. 215–230). Montreal, QC: McGill-Queens University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braedley, S. (2010). Accidental health care: Masculinity and neoliberalism at work. In Braedley, S. & Luxton, M. (Eds.), Neoliberalism and Everyday Life (pp. 136–162). Montreal, QC: McGill-Queens University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braedley, S. (2013). A gender politics of long-term care: Towards an analysis. In Armstrong, P. & Braedley, S. (Eds.), Troubling Care: Critical Perspectives on Research and Practices (pp. 59–70). Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Braedley, S., & Martel, G. (2015). Dreaming of home: Long term residential care and (in)equities by design. Studies in Political Economy, 95, 59–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4(2), 139–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersson, K. (2012). Paradoxes of gender in elderly care: The case of men as care workers in Sweden. NORA-Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 20(3), 166–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anttonen, A., & Zechner, M. (2012). Theorizing care and care work. In Pfau-Effinger, B. & Rostgaard, T. (Eds.), Care Between Work and Welfare in European Societies (pp. 15–34). Houndmills, ENG: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Armstrong, P., Armstrong, H., & Scott-Dixon, K. (2008). Critical to Care. The Invisible Women in Health Services. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baines, D., & Cunningham, I. (2013). Using comparative perspective rapid ethnography in international case studies: Strengths and challenges. Qualitative Social Work, 21(1), 1–16.Google Scholar
Bourgeault, I. L., Atanackovic, J., Rashid, R., & Parpia, R. (2010). Relations between immigrant care workers and older persons in home and long-term care. Canadian Journal on Aging, 29(1), 109–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. (2002). Gender. Cambridge, ENG: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Daly, T., & Szebehely, M. (2012). Unheard voices, unmapped terrain: Care work in long-term residential care for older people in Canada and Sweden. International Journal of Social Welfare, 21(2), 139–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diamond, T. (1992). Making gray gold: Narratives of nursing home care. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
England, P. (2005). Emerging theories of care work. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 381–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerstl-Pepin, C. I., & Gunzenhauser, M. G. (2002). Collaborative team ethnography and the paradoxes of interpretation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 15(2), 137–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glenn, E. N. (2010). Forced to care: coercion and caregiving in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. New York, NY: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J. F. (1975). Living and dying at Murray Manor. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Han, C. S. (2006). Geisha of a different kind: Gay Asian men and the gendering of sexual identity. Sexuality and Culture, 10(3), 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jönson, H., & Giertz, A. (2013). Migrant care workers in Swedish elderly and disability care: Are they disadvantaged? Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39(4), 809–825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Malterud, K. (2009). Kvaliativa metoder i medicinsk forskning. [Qualitative methods in medical research]. Lund, SWE: Studentlitteratur.Google Scholar
McGregor, M. J., Tate, R. B., McGrail, K. M., Ronald, LA., Broemeling, A., & Cohen, M. (2006). Care outcomes in long-term care facilities in British Columbia, Canada. Does ownership matter? Med Care, 44(10), 929–935.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Novek, S. (2013). Filipino health care aides and the nursing home labour market in Winnipeg. Canadian Journal on Aging/ La Revue canadienne du vieillissement, 32(4), 405–416.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price-Glynn, K., & Rakovski, C. (2012). Who rides on the glass escalator? Gender, race and nationality in the national nursing assistant study. Work, Employment & Society, 26(5), 699–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sargent, P. (2004). Between a rock and a hard place: Men caught in the gender bind of early childhood education. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 12(3), 173–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, D. (2001). Qualitative research: issues of theory, method and practice. London, ENG: Sage.Google Scholar
Stone, D. (2000). Caring by the book. In Meyer-Harrington, M. (Ed.), Care work. Gender, class and the welfare state. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Storm, P. (2013). Care work in a Swedish nursing home. In Hujala, A., Rissanen, S., & Vihma, S. (Eds.), Designing wellbeing in elderly care homes (pp. 148–162): Aalto, FIN: Aalto University Press.Google Scholar
Sörensdotter, R. (2008). Omsorgsarbete i omvandling. Genus, klass och etnicitet inom hemtjänsten [Care work in transition. Gender, class and ethnicity within home care]. Stockholm, SWE: Makadam.Google Scholar
Turpin, L., McWilliam, C. L., & Ward-Griffin, C. (2012). The meaning of positive client-nurse relationship for senior home care clients with chronic diseases. Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement, 31(4), 457–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twigg, J. (2004). The body, gender and age: Feminist insights in social gerontology. Journal of Aging Studies, 18(1), 59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wærness, K. (1984). The rationality of caring. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 5, 185–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, A. (2007). Gamla och nya boendeformer för vård och omsorg av äldre: en översikt. [Old and new residential places for older persons in need for care: An overview]. Norrköping, SWE: Tema Äldre och Åldrande, Linköpings universitet.Google Scholar
Wiersma, E. C. (2010). Life around …: Staff’s perceptions of residents’ adjustment into long-term care. Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement, 29(3), 425–434.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wiersma, E. C., & Dupuis, S. L. (2010). Becoming institutional bodies: Socialization into long-term care home. Journal of Aging Studies, 24(4), 278–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, C. L. (1992). The glass escalator: Hidden advantages for men in the ‘female’ professions. Social Problems, 39(3), 253–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, C. L. (1995). Still a man’s world: Men who do “women’s work”. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, C. L. (2015). Crossing over: Interdisciplinary research on “Men who do women’s work”. Sex Roles, 72(7–8), 390–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wingfield, H. A. (2009). Racializing the glass escalator. Reconsidering men’s experience with women’s work. Gender & Society, 23(1), 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar