Author: Majda Hrženjak
Social organization of care as a driver of precarious situations of care workers in home-based elder care
Based on policy analysis and individual semi-structured interviews with care workers in different working arrangements, the author analyses the precarisation of work in home-based elder care in Slovenia, a post-socialist, European Union country characterized by a rapidly ageing population and delays in adapting the long-term care system to this new social risk. The employment and quasi-employment positions which co-exist and compete in the home-based elder care can be sorted along two continuums: between public and market service, and between formal and informal work. The author proceeds from the thesis that working conditions in home-based care differ significantly according to the position of the care worker on these two continuums, i.e. being employed as a care worker in public services, being self-employed, working in informal care markets, holding the status of a family assistant, or being simply an informal family carer. The analysis shows that the precarity of work is more severe in market and informal care, while formalization and socialization of care in public services bring about less precarious working conditions. However, even in the context of public services the working conditions are deteriorating. This study provides a concrete example of how, the state with its social policies that structure the social organization of elderly care, establishes the conditions for precarious situations of care workers in home based care.