Care Work, Individualisation and Risk

Fiona Macdonald ()
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Fiona Macdonald: RMIT University

Chapter Chapter 7 in Individualising Risk, 2021, pp 135-159 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter examines how Australia’s new individualised social care system, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), introduces new risks for frontline social care workers. It focuses on risks of reinforcing the gendered undervaluation of social care work. While gendered undervaluation of social care work is a long-standing problem, it is reinforced in two ways in individualised and marketised social care: first, through the removal of access to many of the mechanisms and avenues that might be used to tackle undervaluation and second, through the reversal of past gains made towards recognition and valuing of social care work. Social care work becomes (re)defined as low-skilled and task-based work or as informal ‘help’; jobs become casualised, with little opportunity for skill development and access to career pathways; employment is moved beyond the reach of protective regulation; and workers are isolated from opportunities for collective organisation and representation.

Keywords: Australia – disability support workers; Working conditions and pay; Undervaluing women’s work; Social relations of work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-33-6366-3_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-33-6366-3_7

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