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Emotional Labour and Aged Care Work

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Workplace Reform in the Healthcare Industry

Abstract

This chapter considers the risks inherent in managing those performing emotional labour in environments that reflect the philosophies of managed care. Drawing on a South Australian case study in aged care, it illustrates the link between the demands of emotional labour and the contradictions imposed on managers attempting to simultaneously minimize costs while providing quality care and quality work environments. Health and aged care workers experience the weight of emotional labour in both their jobs and in the framework of their organizational settings, often in ways that challenge their health and well-being and that ultimately has an impact on organizational performance. A deeper understanding of the range of factors aggravating the emotional labour content of care work is a salient concern given the need to attract and retain workers to the health and aged care sectors. It alerts us to the broad dimensions of human resource management characteristic of this industry.

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Authors
  1. Sue Stack
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Management, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia

    Pauline Stanton

  2. School of Medicine, Flinders University, South Australia

    Eileen Willis

  3. Graduate School of Management, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia

    Suzanne Young

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© 2005 Contributors

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Stack, S. (2005). Emotional Labour and Aged Care Work. In: Stanton, P., Willis, E., Young, S. (eds) Workplace Reform in the Healthcare Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596009_9

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