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Configurations of Care Work: Paid and Unpaid Elder Care in Italy and the Netherlands

Glucksmann, Miriam, Lyon, Dawn (2006) Configurations of Care Work: Paid and Unpaid Elder Care in Italy and the Netherlands. Sociological Research Online, 11 (2). online-online. ISSN 1360-7804. (doi:10.5153/sro.1398) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:1051)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/11/2/glucksmann.htm...

Abstract

Most current sociological approaches to work recognise that the same activity may be undertaken within a variety of socio-economic forms - formal or informal, linked with the private market, public state or not-for-profit sectors. This article takes care of the elderly as an exemplary case for probing some of the linkages between paid and unpaid work. We attempt to unravel the interconnections between forms of care work undertaken in different socio-economic conditions in two settings, the Netherlands and Italy. The research is part of a broader programme concerned with differing interconnections and overlaps between work activities. In this article, we are concerned with: 1) how paid and unpaid care work map on to four 'institutional' modes of provision - by the state, family, market, and voluntary sector; and 2) with the configurations that emerge from the combination of different forms of paid and unpaid work undertaken through the different institutions. Despite the centrality of family-based informal care by women in both countries, we argue that the overall configurations of care are in fact quite distinct. In the Netherlands, state-funded care services operate to shape and anchor the centrality of family as the main provider. In this configuration, unpaid familial labour is sustained by voluntary sector state-funded provision. In Italy, by contrast, there is significant recourse to informal market-based services in the form of individual migrant carers, in a context of limited public provision. In this configuration, the state indirectly supports market solutions, sustaining the continuity of family care as an ideal and as a practice.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.5153/sro.1398
Subjects: H Social Sciences
H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Dawn Lyon
Date Deposited: 19 Dec 2007 18:42 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 11:29 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/1051 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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